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The Static Page

Technology is truly personal

A s many of you know, we’ve been on
a massive hiring drive for the past
couple of months. In almost every
issue we slipped in a blank page, which was
a clever call (we think) for applications from
our readers. A lot of you wrote in saying you
have what it takes to fill that blank page. The
applications kept flowing in by the dozens and
we had to reject quite a few. Sorry guys.

We eventually found the chosen ones who
will bring balance to the ‘force’ (sorry, couldn’t
resist), but this column isn’t about how dif-
ficult it is to get into Digit (quite difficult in
case you were wondering), it’s more about a
particular insight I had while interviewing the
many candidates who applied.

One of the most common questions we ask
here at Digit is “what does technology mean
to you?” or in other words “what is technology
to you?”. A seemingly innocuous question, it
invariably foxes almost everyone.

Once they recover from their deer-in-the-
headlights moment, the interviewees go on
to define their understanding of technology.
We’ve got a whole multitude of answers so far
including absurd gems like “for me technology
is God!” (we really thought it was Google).

For most, technology is smartphones. It’s
unbelievable the number of hours people
spend on XDA forums, rooting / jailbreaking
their phones, customising the look and feel,
and generally tinkering around with a device
that was primarily meant to be just a means
of communication.

The older generation of geeks - a dying
breed now - think PCs are synonymous with
technology (I might be one of them, but I’m too
busy playing Borderlands 2 to care). Some DIY
enthusiasts we’ve spoken to who live and breathe
electronics, microcontrollers, and circuits,
believe robotics and engineering is technology.

My friends at CERN and JNCASR (sorry
I just have to brag) think technology is an
entirely different ballgame. Understandable
right? I have friends working in industries that
are so far removed from anything tech such as
artists, linguists, gym trainers - for them, tech-
nology is something as simple as social media.

The revelation though is that if technology
can mean so many things to so many people -

it perhaps means technology truly is personal.
Gives a new meaning to the term “personal
technology”, doesn’t it? Incidentally it also
happens to be the space your favourite maga-
zine mainly dabbles in.

And it makes sense too, considering how
emotional we get about technology. The PC
Master Race, Android vs. iOS, Playstation vs.
Xbox - these are just small examples of how
caught up we get with our technology.

The more I thought about it, the closer I
got to the truth: Technology is not personal. It
never is.

Tech is just tech. It is we who make it
personal.

Like with the place you call home - history
played its part and decided that this is to be
your motherland - your ancestors paid the
price (sometimes) with blood and wars and
famine. Now you live here and call it your own
and it is personal to you - to you, your country
means something in a unique way (else it’s just
a piece of land, right?).

Even with tech, it’s how you use it that makes
it personal - you tend to own it after you use it.
HTML is just code - the way you once used it to
create your blog (years ago) suddenly makes it
personal to you. A phone is just a phone, then
you buy it, you buy into its ecosystem and sud-
denly it’s your phone. At a broader level, think
about how rockets propel satellites, but could
(and sadly do) propel warheads too.

Like most things, technology is just a
tool. Once you adopt it to serve your needs it
becomes personal to you.

To conclude I leave you with the same ques-
tion, not as a test (which was the purpose of the
question when we put it to our applicants), but
as a way to get some interesting opinions:

What is technology to you?

Siddharth Parwatay

Managing Editor

siddharth. porwotoy@digit. in

“One of the most
common questions
we ask here at
Digit is what
does technology
mean to you?"

Let me know at:

facebook.com/staticsid I @stoticsid I
editor@digit.in

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Big Bytes

My tech

Jayesh Shinde

Technical Editor -
Test Centre

joyesh.shinde@digit.in

“There’s a very
fine line between
essential (tech)
and addiction and
we should all learn
to recognise it."

Let me know your thoughts on this
column at: focebook.com/joyesh.shinde
I @jshinde I joyesh.shinde@digit.in

resolutions

B efore I started writing this month’s

column, I was reminded of my column
from exactly a year ago. Back then I
cribbed about how technology overload can
throw your life off balance, if you aren’t careful,
and my (then future) endeavour to curtail
technology’s irritating influence through 2015.
To that effect, I’m happy to report that I have
successfully exorcised some of my technology
demons. This year has been a satisfying effort in
my quest to drag myself out of a tech-triggered
quagmire. Apart from keeping my phone turned
off on weekends, it’s always been on silent
mode (with notifications for everything except
emails switched off) and this has helped me not
feel constantly connected to my phone - defi-
nitely no phantom phone calls anymore, woot!

I have also greatly reduced my social media
minutes, freeing up precious hours spent on
other productive ventures (more reading time,
for instance). While tuning into music off my
phone, I make sure I put it on airplane mode if I
don’t want to be distracted. Little things.

Enriching experience this endeavour has
been, I must say. While doing all this, I also
realized something important. It’s not as much
to do with multitasking but immersion. I can
multitask when required but I was trying
to be less distracted by technology. Just like
when you’re gaming you don’t want your PC’s
antivirus to keep popping up and when you’re
watching a movie you yell at commercial
breaks, similarly I was conditioning myself to
not be distracted by digital, social, and online
triggers. I want to be able to look aimlessly
out of the train window or spend some quality
time with my friends and family away from the
Internet and my smartphone.

You, too, should give this a try, if you
haven’t already. Technology is an integral
part of our life, no doubt, it would be foolish
to suggest anything but. However, don’t let its
triggers negatively disrupt the balance you’re
trying to strike. There’s a very fine line between
essential (tech) and addiction and we should all
learn to recognise it.

Onwards to my list of resolutions for 2016.
I’m not trying to shoot for the moon, instead
focusing on making one or two tiny changes in
my life - with the help of technology, of course.

Needless to say, the climate change debate
has been of personal interest to me - last month
India and the World vowed to fight global

warming with renewed vigour. After experi-
encing a sweltering summer from February
through November of last year, I’m going to
try and make a difference to minimize my
energy impact going forward this year. Saving
the planet is crucial to our existence and once
again technology will come to our rescue, if
only we decide to be a little more open-minded
and concerned about our impact on the world.
After seeing a solar power bank that works,
innovative (power- saving) lighting solution, and
realizing the potential of DIY hacks to automate
and conserve power around the house, I am
confident of endorsing an eco-sensitive tech-
powered lifestyle in 2016. Fingers crossed.

Can technology be good for your health?

Of course! As much as I rant about distancing
yourself from technology’s ill effects, I have
come to realize that embracing helpful tech-
nology gadgets can lead to a positive lifestyle.
I’ve been using several fitness bands over the
past two-three months, and I’ve seen how it’s
acutely made me aware of my physical activity
levels, or lack thereof. This year, I am going to
ensure I sleep better and move more thanks to
fitness trackers for positive self-reinforcement.
At the end of a hectic day, it’s good to see that
you’ve walked so many steps, or when you wake
up in the morning, it’s insightful to analyze
your sleep cycle. Anything that helps you stay
motivated, help you achieve your fitness goals
is worthy of embracing into your life. I’m also
going to take a deeper dive into mobile gaming
this coming year - probably invest in a phone
controller, too. Not that I’m tired of gaming on
my PS4, 1 don’t want to miss out on the best of
mobile gaming this year. Hey, blowing off steam
through technology is important, too!

Enabling you to do everything better is
essentially what technology strives to do. And
when you practice self-restraint, it enriches
your life even more. Or at least that’s what I’ve
experienced. Embrace technology wherever
necessary and leave it be where it isn’t. At least
that’s my mantra for 2016. What’s yours? El

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in 5

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Change your mind

A s you have already seen from the

cover, we’re starting 2016 by looking
forward, but not with a what to expect
this year story, but a what to expect this decade
(or more) story

Based on what we know of our readers,
although spread across the age groups of 8 to
80, the majority of you are what most would
consider to be “youth” (under 25). For all prac-
tical purposes you are the future of this nation,
and perhaps the world.

Since we’re starting the new year with telling
you what technologies and ideas will disrupt
our future, I suppose it makes sense for me to
go the other way and tell warn you of one very
real threat to true innovation. A dangerous but
usually unnoticed trait in all of us, which makes
us hang on to the past, clinging to it for dear life,
looking for something familiar in this sea of
newness. I don’t know what to call it, so let’s just
go with intellectual inertia.

So what do I mean when I say inertia? You
know when something is familiar, and you’ve
gotten used to it? You feel like it’s the best thing
ever, to have that familiarity. When change does
come along, it has to drag you forwards kicking
and screaming sometimes, because you just love
the old way of doing things.

Let me try and illustrate this further with
examples.

Gmail may seem to be the way email
always was to many of us. The conversation
view, the labels... it’s all so... so... perfect! Some
would beg to disagree. There are many people
who still prefer the old Microsoft Outlook
way of showing and working with email.
There are many who still refuse to give it up.
Obviously as a person who prefers Gmail, I
tend to look at them as suffering from inertia.
There are many who will say, “Email? Who
uses that anymore?” and accuse me of intel-
lectual inertia.

Newer isn’t always better, however. Take
Windows 8 as the next example. Perhaps on
the tablets that it was designed for, the inter-
face was good. However for someone using the
good old mouse and keyboard, being forced
to use a tablet interface felt like Microsoft had
gone bananas! I’m still on Windows 7, because
I tried upgrading to Windows 10, and it started
crashing randomly. Thankfully I was able
to downgrade easily. However, Windows 8 1
avoided like the plague on the desktop.

Microsoft actually may have been suffering
from such inertia for a lot longer. I remember
Bill Gates launching a Tablet PC way before
Apple even dreamt of the iPad. The main reason
why Microsoft’s tablets bombed? Intellectual
inertia. That was the time they did the reverse
of the Windows 7 and 8 fiasco. They took an OS
developed for a mouse and keyboard, and tried
to force it on to a tablet. In hindsight, when you
compare Windows XP Tablet edition to iOS, we
know why the former failed...

Now, however, I think everyone is making
the same mistake again, by trying to use a touch
interface for everything. With the Internet of
Things being so widely hyped, everyone wants
to build connected devices with touch inter-
faces. Even stupid things like printers have
tiny touch screens, when they’re not needed.
Perhaps you can understand why the manu-
facturers are adding them... you have to admit
that you think a printer with a touch screen just
looks a lot cooler than one with buttons. That’s
mental inertia at work, not just on the manufac-
turer’s side, it’s inside us as well.

Some car entertainment systems are going
all touch screen. It’s ridiculous. How is it we
realise that poking at a touch screen phone to
type a message is very dangerous when driving,
as it distracts you from the road, and then have a
touchscreen interface for a car that rivals a smart-
phone’s complexity. Of course drivers shouldn’t
be fiddling with settings when driving... but then
again we also know that driver’s shouldn’t be
texting when driving, and yet they do both...

What we really need is to get over this
inertia, break the molds, and give every new
interface a try. I think the days of touch are
numbered (you can read more about that in the
cover story), but we’re not going to let it die out
as easily as we should, because of inertia from
both manufacturers as well as users.

As more and more of you become makers,
start influencing technology, founding startups,
developing tech for big companies, or even just
being a consumer like I am, I hope this little
column will leave enough of an impression on
you to overcome the inertia, be more accepting
of change, and move forward more freely. E3

Robert Sovereign-Smith

Executive Editor

robert@digit.in

“You know when
something is familiar,
and you’ve gotten
used to it? You feel
like it’s the best thing
ever, to have that
familiarity. When
change does come
along, it has to drag
you forwards kicking
and screaming”

Liked or hated this column?

Let me know at: focebook.com/
rooobo I @rooobo I robert@digit.in

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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January 2016 • Volume 16 • Issue 01

di9it.in

Managing Director Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha

Printer and Publisher Kanak Ghosh

Publishing Director Vikas Gupta

Chief Operating Officer - 9.9 Tech Krishna Kumar

Editorial

Executive Editor Robert Sovereign-Smith
Managing Editor Siddharth Parwatay
Multimedia Co-ordinator Abhijit Dey
Writers Nikhil Punjabi
Interns Abhishek Balaji, Ashish Panigrahi

Test Centre

Technical Editor Jayesh Shinde

Senior Reviewers Anirudh Regidi, Mithun Mohandas

Prasid Banerjee

Reviewers Hardik Singh, Souvik Das, Shrey Pacheco
Assistant Vikas Patil

digit.in

Editor Soham Raninga

Assistant Editor Sameer Mitha
Features Editor Adamya Sharma

Design

Creative Director Tharakaram G

Sr. Art Director Anil VK

Associate Art Director Anil T

Sr. Visualisers Shigil Narayanan & Sristi Maurya

Visualiser NV Baiju

Sr. Designers Haridas Balan, Charu Dwivedi
Peterson PJ, Manjith PB & Pradeep G Nair

Online & Marcom Design
Associate Art Director Shokeen Saifi
Sr. Designer Manoj Kumar VP

Photography

Sr. Photographer Jiten Gandhi
Contributors

Writers Arnab Mukherjee, Dhruv Kumar, Kshitij Sobti,

Nikhil Punjabi, Sandhya Ramesh

Copyediting Infancia Cardozo, Mrunmayi Ainapure

Production and Logistics

Sr GM - Operations Shivshankar Hiremath

Manager Operations Rakesh Upadhyay
Asst Production Manager Vilas Mhatre
Manager Logistics Vijay Menon
Asst Mgr Production & Logistics M P Singh
Executives Mohd. Nadeem Ansari

Brand

Product MgrShreyans Daga, Soham Raninga
Asst Product Mgr Sourabha Shakya
Mgr - Online Shauvik Kumar

Co-ordinator / Scheduling Kishan Singh

Circulation Sales

Head - Circulation Samir Mehta

Regional Mgrs Jayanta Bhattacharyya, Norbert Joseph

Manager Circulation Dharmendra Singh

Executive Vijay Mhatre

Reader Services

Team Leader Sudhir Patel

Executives Pradeep, Bhishm, Nilesh & Narendra

+91-22-67899678 / help@digit.in

Cover Illustration & Design Shigil Narayanan

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Published and printed by Kanak Ghosh for and on behalf of
the owners, M/s Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd. Published
at A-262, 2nd Floor, Defence colony, New Delhi-110024 and
printed at International Print-O-Pac Limited, C-4 to C-ll,
Hosiery Complex, Phase II Extension, Noida-201306 (U..P.)
INDIA. Editor : Kanak Ghosh.

“We do not endorse or recommend any product or service adver-
tised in the magazine. The advertisement’s in this magazine are
for information purposes only. We do not, expressly or impliedly,
warrant or assume any liability or responsibility for the quality,
accuracy, completeness, legality, reliability, usefulness or claims
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Disclaimer

For every Digit contest, there will be only one winner,
unless specified otherwise.

In the event of a dispute, the Editor’s decision shall be final.

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Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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Lx] The reason I write this email is the
December issue and the plethora of
articles it carried. Being a student of
Computer Science, an originality enthu-
siast and a geek at that, I too agree with
your views that maybe, just maybe, every
"new" idea may not be original. It sure
does drive one to question: "Is the present
really original?"

Questions aside, this month's articles
on Deep Web by Dhinoj, Intelligent life
confirmed by Sandhya Ramesh, React JS
dealt by Kshitij and the concept of using
Arduino to smartify (as I like to call it)
one's home took me back to the summer
internship I took up this year at Cybereye
Research Labs and Security Solutions.

We designed a cross-platform application
using React and Flux. It’s a framework
to provide full financial transparency of
an NGO (in fact, any NGO). Also, we were
trained in the basics of IoT, as part of
which we designed a smart door unit and
were given a hands-on session in network
security and hacking.

My request is, if you're going to do an
issue on Hacking and Network Security, I
suggest that you consider writing a piece
on Cybereye Labs. Please visit http://
cybereyelabs.io and http://maketheworld-
wonderful.org

- Venkata Abhinav Devaguptapu

Thank you so much for writing in. It's
detaiLed feedback Like yours that makes
it all worthwhile. I'LL definitely check out
Cybereye Labs.

-Siddhorth

M This is my first time writing to you.

Your magazine is terrific, but you’ve had
enough buttering up already. Getting to
the point, your magazine has unique and
creative content, but it's the same plate of
roti dal. Add a few spices.

Your creative presentation skills are
dropping. Your writing remains terrific
undoubtedly, but you can change pres-
entation and layout, among other things.
Also, your cover stories on SKOAR! are
bleh. Do a story on how to have a proper
gaming session or carry tips and reviews
of gaming gear in the gaming magazine.

It would be great to see a startup page in
your magazine. People can send in ideas

and you could feature them. Waiting
for my "Digit would like you to work for
them" letter.

-Arjun Tadav

We agree. Perhaps we have let the ball
drop a little too often in terms of presen-
tation. We are very aware of our short-
comings in that field, and we hope to be
able to improve drastically over the new
year. You have our word. We will certainly
take your other suggestions seriously and
work on them as well.

-Robert

[x] I like calling myself your #2 fan (#1 has
already been claimed by others.) I liked
this month's Fallout 4 poster. However, I
was expecting COD:Black Ops 3 (You guys
are unpredictable, and that's good!) The
dmystify on Solar System was the topic I
was waiting for since the dmystify booklet
was started. Really rich content and awe-
some explanation. I'll keep the ‘Rewind’
booklet in my safe, for it has nearly all the
tech happenings of 2015 and I frequently
need such data for quizzes and competi-
tions. This time's SKOAR! was better than
expected. You did a good job on the cover
picture. Thank you so much for the Star
Wars: Republic Commando and other games
on the DVD.

Uncle Robert, your article on privacy
was awesome! My only concern is that
even if the government or organisations
just use our data for surveillance and
monitoring purpose, we can't expect the
same from system breachers or hackers. I
also found the article on Darknet inter-
esting, because it includes lots of things
you don't normally read about in your
daily life. This issue, according to me,
was the best issue of the whole year. It's
so good that even if we compile all of this
year's issues in one magazine, it won’t be
comparable to the December Edition.

Finally, I’d like to see a Fast Track on
‘Indie Gaming’ with lessons on all its key
elements - from thinking to making. And
a dmystify on ‘Time Travel’ or ‘Parallel
Worlds’ would be great.

-Ares358 (a.k.a Sunny Kushwaha)

Sunny-beta, if you call me uncle again
I will send the NSA after you! ;-) Yes,
no arguments about needing data to be
private from hackers, especially credit
card data. Really the question is whether
we are OK with an authorised machine
reading and flagging certain data as
potentially dangerous. I don’t just mean
terrorism, what about suicide prevention
(monitoring Facebook posts for seemingly
suicidal behaviour), or tracking pedo-

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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Inbox

^ Hi Siddharth my gaming story is tied
in with the editorials by Jayesh (tech
journey) and Robert (addictions) in the
November issue. My profile: 55 years old,
no kids, working in a MNC as middle
manager and staying in Kandivali,
Mumbai. I’m an avid wargamer and have
even written for the last regular issue
of SKOAR! which was a special
on World War 2 games. I love
the look on the faces of the
sales guys when I walk into a
shop, ask for games and am
inevitably presented with
the query, "How old is your
child"? to which I invariably
reply "50+".

I'm standing in front of
the shrinking PC section. The
shelves don’t have the kind of stuff
that got me hooked to gaming years
ago - wargames with regular strategy.
(Yes, I know Counter Strike is a strategy
game, but then...) I settle for Civilization
and that classic Age of Empires III (Duh, I
told you I was old). I have a backup copy
of the latter in case the one that’s being
played regularly by my equally 50+ wife
goes bad (I got her hooked on to Age of
Empires so that she can leave me alone to
play my favourites).

My digital journey began back in
the year 1987 when I tried my hands at
programming. I left the company, but
not before acquiring a healthy respect
for WordStar and Lotus 1-2-3 (Did I say I
was 50+?).

Marriage and 10 years later, it’s the
late 1990s and I have my own PC. WS
and Lotus are now history and replaced
by ‘Word’, ‘Excel’ and ‘Powerpoint,’
which neither has the power nor does it
make a point. I walked into Crossword
and saw a discounted "3-in-l" pack of

LETTER OF THE MONTH #1

strategy games. The first game I ever
played was Steel Panthers - a turn-
based strategy game. Hooked. Forever.
(The other two were Talonsoft's Battle of
Bulge and Sid Meier's Gettysburg - both
of which I sadly threw away without
knowing the lineage of the developers.)
Since then, I’ve been hooked to authentic
war games played from a general's
eye view.

I spent (and still spend) an
inordinate amount of time
hunting down obscure titles
paid and free such as Panzer
General and Fleet Command
and Talonsoft’s games.

My first ever RTS was Fleet
Command - most of the others
are turn-based. My utterly favorite
RTS games are Company of Heroes
and Ardennes Offensive (downloaded from
Steam). I found the gameplay of World of
Conflict and Codename Panzers: Cold War
incredibly immersive and enjoyable.
Having faced online ignominy, I continue
to play against the computer - as and
when my job allows (Last night was nir-
vana - CoHl for three hours till 1 a.m.)

I still prefer PC games. Why should I
pay more for dedicated hardware when
I already have a PC with a GeForce
graphic card and 2TB hard disk? I still
prefer to sit with an old fashioned phys-
ical book (I hate all e-readers), with my
favorite track playing on my old fash-
ioned music system (dedicated audio CD
player, amplifier and speakers). Conver-
gence may be in right now, but then I'm
quite divergent (Pun intended. Yes, I saw
the movie).

-K V Ramesh

Your letter was one of the most inter-
esting ones we've ever received.

I totally agree with you about what
passes off as strategy gaming these days.
You can rest assured none of us here think
Counter Strike is strategy :-)

To this day, I play classics such as
WC3, Red Alert 2 and Homeworld (Did
you check out the remake?) and Activi-
sion's 1998 Battlezone. The last one on
that list takes the cold war to the moon.

A story unlike any I've seen till date.
You'll like it - it takes the "general's eye
view" that you’re familiar with to the
front lines. So while you control the bat-
tlefield you’re also one of the players, i.e.
you’re able to see through that charac-
ter's first person view and fight shoulder
to shoulder with your comrades. This
was an unheard of concept in 1999 when
I discovered the game.

Coming to your journey with PCs,
software and computing, surprisingly I
too can relate. Dbase for example brings
back memories. I was too young to
experience it in real-world scenarios, but
I did study it academically :-) Executing
copy commands in DOS to copy games on
floppies too. Also I've never read a better
descriptor for PowerPoint. Hahaha.

PS. Most of the games you've men-
tioned I've not even heard of, to be honest.
However, my next move is to hit them up
in Steam or hunt down some of the more
obscure ones on a DOS games archive I've
depended on from time-to-time.

PPS. I've eaten humble pie playing my
favourite games online too. But it's fun to
experience the skill level out there.

PPPS. Go for the Chromecast. With
Plex, it will just make watching content
much easier.

Drop by our office sometime. You'll find
people about half your age, but kindred
spirits nonetheless.

-Siddharth

philes? There are many ways in which
authorities can actually do a better job
of keeping you safe with more access to
data. It’s where to draw the line that the
debate is about, and I don’t think either
extreme is right (total privacy vs no pri-
vacy). I don’t know about the Fast Track

suggestion, but I can certainly write a
time travel dmystify (though it would be
less science and more science fiction).
Let’s see how much positive feedback we
receive for this suggestion of yours. If we
do, consider it done.

-Robert

lx] I’m a big fan of your magazine. Here are
my suggestions:

1. Please update your DVD UI. I think
it's very old now and seriosuly needs a
minor reboot.

2. In the next issue, can you provide a
Fast Track or tutorial on the Adobe

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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[Xi Hey Digit! Merry Christmas and
Happy new year to ya’ll! I love
your magazine a lot and like
always the December Collec-
tor’s edition was the best. I
loved the Physics of Star
Wars article. I found a few
Star Wars Easter Eggs in
the Bazaar section such as
Darth Vader, The Millen-
nium Falcon, R2-D2, C-3P0,

Yoda, a Stormtrooper, Death
Star. Whose was this really crea-
tive idea? Also, I have a question
for you: I have sent quite a few emails
to AgentOOl and your SOS service also,
and every time I got a reply within 3-4
days. Surely you guys must be getting a
thousand emails every day, how are you

guys able to manage so many emails?

Can you guys give a Just Cause 3
poster next month? In 2K16, as
usual, new gadgets will come,
you will review the gadgets
and every month I will
wait eagerly for your
magazine to read those
reviews, even though I
can’t afford half of those
gadgets, and don’t need the
others, but I’m addicted. Ciao!

-Rohan Shah

The force is strong with you young
padawan... It’s something to marvel
at, for even the very wise cannot see all
ends. Can you this time?

-Siddharth

Creative Suite, especially a guide on
using After Effects.

-Amandeep Kumar

We will change the DVD interface soon
enough, though it will get simpler and
more utilitarian, and not flashy. Due to
the lack of partners to provide us with
video tutorials on After Effects,
we haven't covered them in the DVDs
yet. We can certainly consider an FT to
After Effects.

-Abhijit

IX Hope this email is discovered by a
human in your inbox... Calling in. Signal
test 1... 2.. .3... OK.

This was the effect of the October
issue (the best). I’m halfway through the
November issue since I discoverd it late in
the library.

1. Please provide more quizzes.

2. In the Fast Track, there’s plenty of
information, but why don't you pro-
vide some tutorials in it? It would help
a lot.

I also like writing so I’d love to be your
minion for a few articles.

That's all MINION007 EXITING.
That’s all Bose. *shhh* Do reply *shhh*

-SagarKhatri
( message resent 10 times)

Minion existence acknowledged.

Anti spam sequence initiated.

-Digit AI

lx] I'm 15 years old and love only two
things in today’s tech world: gadgets and
gadgets! And you too! This is my first
letter to you. I recently subscribed to three
months trial pack or collector’s edition
pack of yours. Though you’re the best, I
have some suggestions that you could take
into consideration:

1. Develop your own Android app
(not one like Tech tips) which is
similar to your website and gives

us notifications of every latest update
in the tech world right on our
phone’s screen.

2. Revamp the mag’s look.

3. Change your DVD’s UI. The UI should
be thematic or based on that month’s
cover story!

4. Organise more tech contests sponsored
by you!

Now that criticism is done, let me
flatter you a bit:

1. Awesome style of writing indeed.
Reading your magazine significantly
improves my way of speaking. The
credit for that goes solely to your mind-
blowing editors.

2. No words left for your gadget reviews.

Aye aye sir! We shall try to implement
your suggestions. Maybe we could give up
on sleeping...

However, our Tech Tips app is not
meant for people like you. It’s meant to
be used by beginners in tech. So if you
have parents or grandparents who are
struggling with technology, or younger
siblings who are just starting off with
tech, let them use the app.

-Mithun

lx] The thought about “original thought” is
among many of your and other's editorials
and other standard article pages' content
that intrigue me. In all of my consciously
contemplated ideas, the ancient Indian
schools of thought seem far advanced for
today despite their timelessness. Since I'm
keen on practical philosophy and have
found that ancient Indian thought schools
contain lots of pragmatism inherently,
here's what I think about thoughts -
original or otherwise.

My philosophical exposure points
at two things about thoughts. Firstly,
there won't ever be any dearth for new or
unconventional thoughts. Secondly, none
of it will ever be possibly original - as in
belonging to the thinker who thinks of
them first. But these seemingly paradox-
ical points aren't really contradictory.

To see this, one would have to contem-
plate on their perceptions of the model
for life on Earth and the world of humans
deeply enough with purely philosoph-
ical bent of mind. A mind that tries to
adequately reason and believe, as neces-
sary, when observing key aspects of the
problem in gedanken mode to decipher
the unseen order in the chaos apparently
inherent in the topic of contemplation.

Apologies for the long sentences. But, if
we could strike meaningful conversations
around this topic, it could turn out to be
an excursion in learning from each other.

-Narayanan R

Hi Narayanan, you've presented quite
an interesting philosophical take on the
subject of my editorial, especially from
the perspective of the Indian mysticism
or philosophy. However I don't find your
two ideas contradictory at all. And I don't
even need to enter a gedanken state,

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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Balloon popper!

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because unconventional thought is far
different from original thought. Lastly,
it’s only through meaningful conversation
(sometimes even with one's own self)
that we reach higher consciousness. To
that end, do keep in touch and let’s con-
tinue this conversation!

-Siddhorth

[x] I'm your fan and I love Digit magazine.
The DVDs including the 14 years of PDF
archives and new game trailers were mar-
velous. I know that the amount I could
admire you in my entire life is much less
than you deserve. The mags were perfect
as usual.

-Sandeep Kapoor

Thanks for your feedback.

-Siddhorth

[x] I'm a great fan of your magazine. I
really like the article "Career in VFX".

I'm impressed knowing that the VFX
industry is getting bigger by the day. I'll be
very grateful if you posted an article about
2D Animation in India. It will be useful
to me since I belong to the animation
industry, dmystify is awesome.

- Gyanmaya Acharya

Thanks for appreciating my article.
We’ll discuss the possibility of writing an
article on 2D Animation. Do keep your
eyes peeled for it.

-Infoncio

[x] Greetings to a fabulous team that
makes people more tech savvy. You do
awesome work for which I don't even have
words to appreciate you. These are some
points I’d like to share with you:

1. The way you write articles is awesome.

2. Include the cash on delivery option for
the mag.

3. Each time I get my magazine I always
see that free DVD thing, but actually
those are not free.

4. Please bring back two DVDs.

5. Only due to you guys I’ve cleared my
National Cyber Olympiad with an
international rank of 43.

6. Many students are not aware about your
magazine and I find it very concerning.

-SagarNehra

Thank you for your feedback. We will
certainly try and implement your sugges-
tions. As for the "free" DVDs, of course they
cost us money to make, but we give them
for "free”, as it is illegal to "sell” DVDs that
consists of software created by others.

-Robert

lx] This is not my first email to you guys,
but this will be a lengthy one. It took me
six months to gather courage to write this
email. So here it goes.

1. Feedback: I love the editorial section,
all the articles written by The Big 3
(Sid, Jayesh, and Robert), the way you
guys think, your thought process and
views, they are really amazing. Do
keep writing :).

I love the Digit diary and Inbox, as it
tells readers like me that you take every
letter seriously, even the criticism. I
salute you guys for the overall effort you
all put in. Please give my appreciation
to the Design team, they make some
amazing graphics on the cover page.

2. Improvements: To be blunt I don't
like your website, I just visit it once a
month to see if anything has improved.
The problem with the website is not
the content that you guys published,
but the way whole website and the
content has been arranged. One more
thing I find irritating is the slideshow
section, as there is no way to know
when a slideshow has ended. Also,
does anyone of you answer the Ask
Digit section?

I don't like your YouTube channel. You
can improve the video reviews. For
example: the recent video of Moto G
turbo edition review by Hardik, you
could have included gaming perfor-
mance and camera image samples.
Then the Apple iPhone 6s indepth
review was 22 minutes long! They
shouldn’t be more than 10 minutes
long. In the Micromax Lap Tab review,
the background noise was an irritation.
And the last thing, in the Zerol awards
you guys missed out on advanced
point and shoot cameras, mirrorless
cameras, earphones and headphones.

3. Suggestion: Can you guys include a
short profile pic in the magazine of the
writers above the article? Is there a

way that you guys can provide a digital
copy of the mag including the fast track
and content of the DVD?

-Ammar Tinwala

Thank you for your honest feedback
Ammar, and you (or other readers) should
never need courage to write feedback to
us. Listening to criticism from those who
love you is the only way to really improve
in life, and we are glad you consider your-
self part of our family.

We are already working on a re-design,
and much of what you’ve mentioned
about the site, magazine, DVDs, and more
is already underway.

-Robert

lx] I’m from Jharkhand. My friend once
brought Digit to our school, and when I
read it I bought it from him! Now I read
it every month. Your dmystify is very
nice, and thank whoever had the idea for
it. Don’t decrease the number of DVDs. I
specially like Digit Squad. Please increase
the number of pages of SKOAR!

-Anku Burnwal

Thank you for your wonderful feedback
Anku. We will try and implement all of
your suggestions .

-Robert

lx] I am a 22 year old Software Engineer and
a digit subscriber in Chennai. I saw your
December issue delay mail when I was on
the way back to my hometown because
of the Chennai floods. It made me happy,
because although I was missing the issue,

I at least got access to the digital copy :D
I have a few suggestions for you including
creating podcasts, book reviews, FT on
travel tech guide, story on audiobook
services, a video series on Indian startups
and the science of rain.

Keep up the good work Team Digit.

You rock as always.

-Arm Ponnusamy

We know what you’ve been through.
We’re in Mumbai remember? We have
our own floods every monsoon to deal
with. We will try and implement all of
your suggestions.

-Siddhorth

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

> GREED

For those who just want more
than should be humanly
allowed, we have enough to
satisfy your hunger...

THIS MONTH: Nike Zoom
Structure 19, Steelcase Think
Chair, Exospace B55, Sonorus
VIII and X ,and more...

> TEMPTATION

If you’re wondering what to do
with yourself or how to spend
some time getting cultured,
this section is for you...

THIS MONTH: Jessica
Jones, The Man in the High
Castle, and uber productivity
apps to ring in the New Year...

Smart

Battery Case

Say hello to Apple’s new
battery case which gives
your sweet looking iPhone 6
or 6s, an unfavourable and
ugly bump at the back.

But if you’re a fanboy, you
would want to overlook
this fact and focus on the
extra juice it offers, doubling
as a case as well. Claimed
to boost up your phone to
work for an additional 25
hours, the smart battery
case will be available in
two colours at a price of
approximately ^6,000.

DESIRE ^ SHOWCASE

Lnson

Unlock hipster cred for office owners

W e confess that we don’t
come anywhere near the
most hard-working asset in our
office and that someone is our
trustworthy printer. Since we
can’t find any other use of all
the printed pages, we send them
off for recycling or shred them
directly. But wouldn’t it be great
if we could recycle and reuse
the wasted paper over and over
again without the intervention of
an outsider? Enter the PaperLab,
an in-office paper recycling
system which is probably the
world's first. Manufactured
by Epson, it follows the same
system of recycling paper but
apparently uses less water. The
system will be able to consume
all your wasted paper and give
you back plain white sheets
of paper, ready to be printed

upon. You wouldn't have to wait
much since it only takes about
three minutes to be ready to
print clean white sheets. To
try and put the process into
perspective, the system will
be able to print 14 A4 sheets
every minute while users will
have complete control over

the size and thickness of the
paper. The PaperLab is set to
make its debut sometime this
year in Japan. There isn't any
official word on the pricing yet
but it's obvious to sell at quite
an expensive price. Finally, your
lonely printer will finally have a
partner in crime.

Netflix Socks

| Some TV

§r shows make

you reconsider
Netflix and chill to watch the
complete season instead.
Netflix Socks will pause
streaming if it detects when
you’ve fallen asleep so you
don’t miss anything.

Coravin System Zenmuse XT

Wine connoisseurs
are quite fussy
in opening wine
bottles due to
the hindrance in its aging
process. The Coravin System
inserts a hollow needle
through the cork to maintain
its pristine condition.

Drones are cool.
Drones with
thermal cameras
are cooler. The Zenmuse XT
camera module powered by
FLIR takes advantage of DJI’s
gimbal setup enabling drones
to conduct aerial thermal
imaging analysis and reports.

Avegant Glyph

The Glyph is not
a VR headset
but more of a
personal theater headset,
giving you the illusion of a 65-
inch screen. After a successful
Kickstarter campaign, they
have begun shipping with
10,000 units.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in 17

DESIRE ^ SHOWCASE

Scarlet-W

ed cameras aren’t your regular cameras that you would pick to
shoot YouTube videos (apart from a few crazy ones) since it’s
akin to overdosing on an overkill. But in case you were planning on
filming a new spin-off from the LOTR series, please be our guest
since the Scarlet-W and Scarlet-W Monochrome have become
cheaper. Both the cameras are capable of shooting super crispy
5K RAW video and 2K ProRes video, thanks to the company’s
iconic Dragon sensor. The hyper-charged camera can capture 5K
widescreen videos in 60 fps, 4K in 150 fps and 2K in 300 fps. The
Scarlet-W isn’t Red’s flagship camera and it is actually intended
more towards indie filmmakers as their primary camera. Priced
at about ^6.6 lakhs, the 1.6 kg camera will let you shoot cinema-
quality videos. The Red cameras have Peter Jackson’s seal of
approval on them and hence, great things can be expected from the
ones wielding the cameras in their films.

SPECIFICATIONS

Sensor type: Red Dragon 13.8 MP CMOS I Effective Pixels:

5120 x 2700 I Body: Aluminium alloy I Weight: 1.6 kg I Dynamic
Range: 1.6 +/- stops I Signal-to-noise ratio: 80 dB

ET Stone

P roducts harbouring renewable sources of energy in devices
are rare and so are power outlets. And considering the
limited battery capacity of our devices, you are bound to carry
a portable power bank who themselves have a limited capacity.
Solar-powered power banks have been hitting crowdfunding
platforms lately, successful ones such as Solar Paper and now,

ET Stone is another such device we received at our test labs.
Covered with solar cells on one side, the device takes more than
half a day to fully charge using a natural or artificial source of
light. The Stone also has an LED lamp and torch, bright enough
to induce temporary blindness. It also comes with an additional
car and tripod mount. The enclosure doesn't seem to be rigid
enough to avoid damage and the material also feels low quality.
Nonetheless, the Stone definitely serves its purpose of being an
unlimited source of juice for your electronic gadgets whenever
the Sun decides to be at its most generous. Not bad at ^3,999.

SPECIFICATIONS

Battery capacity: 3,100mAh I Input current: 2A I Output
current: 1.5A I Solar panel: 2.75V / 550mA I Dimensions: 84mm
x 135mm x 16.8mm

Metropolitan+

I n an era dominated by fancy, hipster digital smartwatches,
Timex is trying to turn back time by going back to the good ol’
days with its new analog watch called the Metropolitan-^. Broadly,
this time piece looks like any other watch but it deceptively hides
activity tracking sensors under the hood. This certainly isn’t a
smartwatch but it isn’t just an activity tracker. The watch only
tracks your steps, distance and calories burned, sending all the
data to your phone through Bluetooth. The Timex app enables you
to analyse all the data tracked from the watch. The watch claims
that you won’t need to charge the device ever but don’t expect the
battery life to exceed a year. No word on pricing yet.

SPECIFICATIONS

Case Height: 12 mm I Case Lug Width: 20 mm I Case Material:
Brass I Case Width: 42mm I Warranty: 1 Year Limited I Water
Resist: 50 meters I Attachment Material: Silicone

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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DESIRE ^ SHOWCASE

EL-8 Titanium

A pple’s decision to replace all the ports on the Macbook with a
single USB Type-C port managed to piss off a lot of people and
surprisingly even the fanboys weren’t impressed with this move.
Rumours has it that they might even get rid of the 3.5mm headphone
jack on the iPhone and push the efforts to build audio products
incorporating lighting connectors. Not the first but Audeze seems
to be quite positive with this advancement and has released a new
headphone called the EL-8 Titanium that connects to iOS devices
using the lighting port. The headphone comes packed with a digital
signal processor, digital-to-audio converter and an in-built amplifier.
The company is known to manufacture high-quality and expensive
headphones but since the EL-8 series falls under the affordable
range, it is priced at around ^53,000. The headphone as usual fol-
lows the same remarkable design and this one is a closed-back
version. The mic enables you to control your iOS device through
Siri and Audeze also lets you download its own app which bundles
an equaliser and sound presets. Non-iOS users can still consider
purchasing since it ships with a 3.5mm connector cable with the box.

SPECIFICATIONS

Driver Size: 100 mm I Maximum power handling: 15W (for
200ms) 1 Maximum SPL: >130dB I Frequency response: 10 Hz
- 50 kHz I Impedance: 30 ohms I Optimal power requirement:

200mW - 4W

TMA-2

T he concept of modular devices is penetrating into
almost every gadget segment and this time it’s
headphones. With AIAIAI’s new headphone called the
TMA-2, you’ll be able to pick almost all the broader
components of the headphone including the head-
band, speaker unit, earbud and cable. Their website
has an easy-to-use interface to configure your custom
headphone with several options to choose among
the components. The options aren’t exactly too many
but considering their idea, there’s definitely space for
addition of new components. The Configurator sec-
tion allows you to browse through the different com-
ponents and the respective options. You should be
careful since changing the speaker units and earbuds
affect the sound profile of the headphone. We assem-
bled two iterations of the headphones and came up
with models costing between ^16,000 to ^18,000.

SPECIFICATIONS

Driver size: 40 mm Resonance frequency: 85 Hz
Impedance: 32 ohm Magnet: Neodymium Diaphragm:
PET Weight: 233 g

20 Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Here is where we keep on eye on crowdfunded
projects that will moke you go ‘Shut up and
take my money!’

OP - Beer Gadget

D o you Like to drink beer? But once you’ve had a few, you
might end up being gravitationally challenged or simply
lose your hand-eye cordination. Worry not, here’s a handy
gadget that you’d want around. OP is designed to ease your
beer carrying problems. There are basically three pieces in this
gadget : one belt attachment, one bottle attachment and to
add its magnificence it even has a bottle opener included. The
original idea of the product was woven around beer, but Op has
expanded its product idea to include other beverages in various

packagings, like cans by providing the bottle attachments of
different sizes, to accomodate the non-drinking community. But,
beware to not take it lightly on account of it’s size, because this
tiny thing has the resilience to even carry Thor’s hammer. This
little addon for lifestyle is available for just ^583. One of the few
time OP did not disappoint.

Cast by Genii

R emember that irritating
friend who always inter-
jects while a video is playing?

He might have been irritating
but you sure do miss him
when he isn’t around. With
this nifty gadget, it’ll be as
if he never left the room.

Using Cast by Genii, you can
stream the video to your
friend (s)’s PC/laptop at the
exact time stamp and also
chat during playback on the
same display. The playback
should be seamless, regards
to its Intel SoC and two
separate Wi-Fi antennas. The app
works on iOS 8.0 devices and above,
and the same can be said for devices
running Android 4.4 and above. It is

a community viewing hub designed to
stream content from a mobile device
onto to a display or to be forwarded
to a friend. The little igloo shaped

gadget is compact and has a glossy
finish. The good thing about Cast is
that you just need one hub to cast
content up to 6 devices and location
isn't a barrier. What's even better is
that you can stream content from
services like Netflix and Hulu or from
consoles like PlayStation and Xbox.
Apparently, there’s a legal loophole.

SPECIFICATIONS
Cast Box: Dimensions: 7.5 X 15
cms I Intel SoC I 2 Wi-Fi antennas
(with n/ac and b/g/n/ac bands)

Cast Cam: Height - 11.5 cmsl
Connectivity: WiFi g/n I Video
Recording - 30 fps I Encoding:
H.264I Microphone and speaker
(in-built)

Cast Stick: Connectivity: HDMI
and Wi-Fi n/ac I Playback support:
1080p60 and 720p60.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

DESIRE^ TAKE MY MONEY!

ShiftWear

T here are some devices that just beg to take your money.

These sneakers are definitely one of them. So, what’s so
great about these pair of sneakers? They’ve got flexible screens
on the sides! Using the app, you can customise your daily look
to match your phone wallpaper, you pants or even your tattoo...
if you’re into that. The e-paper display is waterproof and the

ti,* ■ ■ f. iti'E

•.iiM.m hi e.iiL-r

soles are made of Kevlar which makes them perfectly washable.
The shoes are available in three variants - LI (low ankle), Ml
(medium ankle) and HI (high ankle) available for $150, $250 and
$350 respectively. Add in an extra $50 for shipping it to straight
to your doorstep. And customers might find it irksome when
faced with dropping the extra $99 for the app.

CarDroid

W hen you think of vehicle security, you’re instantly reminded
of those irritating systems that blare incessantly and have
hardly any extra features. The expensive units might have built-
in GPS but that’s about it. Unless of course you’re willing to sell
your kidney to get Jarvis. Here’s the first ever Android based
car security device - the CarDroid. Aside from making your car
"smart” it even has a built-in accelerometer. If you ever end up
in an accident, your car’s movements are recorded so you have
something that’s akin to a black box for cars.

Pine A64

T here’ve been plenty of credit card-sized computers over
the past few years ever since Raspberry Pi popularised
the genre. And now, there’s a new kid on the block. Meet the
Pine A64. It gives the Pi a run for it’s money. For $15, you get
the Pine A64 which has a much powerful SoC with 64-bit 1.2
Ghz Quad Core Cortex A53 CPU and Mali 400 MP2 GPU. And
with 512 MB RAM you can play 4K H.265 videos. For four extra
dollars, you get the Pine A64+ with double the RAM and a
gigabit ethernet port against the 10/100 MBps port on the Pine
A64. It supports Android 5.1 and Ubuntu OS.

SPECIFICATIONS

Dimensions: 4.9 X 7.5 X 2.9 cms I Processor: MediaTek MT6572
Dual-Core 1.2 GHz I RAM: 512 MB I ROM: 4 GB I Connectivity:
OBD II, Wi-Fi, GPS, WPS, A-GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, 3G, GPRS,

EDGE I OS: Android 4.4 and above I Battery: 1400 mAh.

SPECIFICATIONS

Pine A64: Processor: Cortex A53 64-bit 1.2GHz; Cores-4 I
GPU: Mali400-MP2, 512MB DDR3 I Flash: Upto 256GB; 10/100
MBps Ethernet

Pine A64+: Processor: Cortex A53 64-bit 1.2GHz, Cores-4 I
GPU: Mali400-MP2, 1GB DDR3 I Flash: Upto 256GB; Gigabit Ethernet

Clicker-Rang

I magine you are surrounded by people who are
boring you out of your mind. Can you send an SOS!
to protect you from these people without really letting
them know? If you’ve been in this situation then keep
this tiny wearable handy. It can be a bracelet, necklace,
keychain or your good old watch. It allows some basic
functions like SOS, messenger notifications and finding
phone. However, to use these functions you just have to
customize the dial interface sections via its app. There
is even a built-in game in the app playable by using
gestures on Rang for keeping you occupied. So at a
price of US $39, it sure looks like an expensive piece of
jewellery, but really isn’t. It may come to your rescue
when boredom is overbearingly strenuous!

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

DESIRE

Stylish, glamorous and interesting
smartphones ore always on the horizon. We
take o closer look ot whot’s hot in this space...

Oukitel K10000

H ave you ever Looked at your smartphone’s pathetic battery
and wondered why battery tech isn’t moving as fast as it
should? This Chinese company crammed a giant battery into a

phone, rather than improving
the density of the battery.In a
blog post by the company itself,
Oukitel has ‘leaked’ images and
specifications of its upcoming
phone, which is set to sport a
10,000 mAh. To put things in
perspective, the iPad Pro sports
a battery capacity of 10,307
mAh, which is one of the largest
batteries crammed in a tablet.
The K10000 promises a battery
life of 15 days, without needing
to charge the phone. The specs
aren’t even 2014 standards by
any means. From the images
leaked by the company, the
phone seemed to sport a micro
USB port, flanked by dual
speaker grills on either side.

The body might be a strong

polycarbonate blend, with metal along the edges. GearBest has
the phone listed for $239, shipping from Jan 30th, 2016. You can
find the blog post here [http://dgit.in/K10000leak] and the listing
here [http://dgit.in/K10kblog].

P >

4 p

q w « r t y g i g p
a 4 d f u h i K I
* z.*GYbnm43

SPECIFICATIONS

Display: 5.5’ at 1280x720 I Processor: 64 bit MediaTek MT6735
clocked at 1GHz I Memory: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM I Camera;
8MP (S13MP) back + 2MP (S5MP) front I Battery: lOOOOmAh,
Flash Charging at 9V/3A I Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.0, GPS,

USB OTG, 2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, 3G: WCDMA
1900/2100MHZ, 4G: FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz I SIM:
Dual SIM, Dual standby, IMicroSD+lSIM

Kyocera Digno Rafre

T here is no situation where you should
feel the need to wash your phone, but
in case you are a germaphobe or work in
such an environment, there is a phone for
you. The Kyocera Digno Rafre is a phone
that is currently available only in Japan,
which can be washed with foam soap all
over. So, if your kid is prone to dropping
the phone in food and debris, you wont
have a problem washing it off with
soap. Phones which are washable with
soap are rare, as the seal on these phones should be tight enough
to prevent soap water from seeping in, which has a lower surface
tension than water. Normal seals used in waterproof phones will not
hold up, and you’ll end up getting your phone waterlogged. Kyocera
has no plans to market this $460 phone outside Japan.

SPECIFICATIONS

Display: 5", 1280x720 I Battery: 3000mAh I Camera: 13MP rear,
front unknown I Software: Android 5.1

* ^

SR-

SvncPhone

ie Sync Phone promises to put a phone in your hands,
which can also function as a desktop when needed, by
using just a cable. The campaign currently has 3 models
listed, the SyncPhone, SyncPhone S and the SyncPhone
Pro with desktop class hardware. The phones run on the
Intel Atom variants of x5 and x7. If the campaign meets
a few goals, it promises triple boot capabilities of Android,
Windows 10 and Ubuntu. Go here: http://dgit.in/Syncphone

SPECIFICATIONS

Processor: Intel® Atom™ x7-Z8700 2.40Ghz I Memory:
8GB RAM, 128GB ROM expandable via MicroSD I Camera:
20MP I OS: Windows 10 I Display: 5.4” I Connectivity:
Dual-LTE-GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB 3.1, Type-C

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

GREED

EXAMIN

What do we do to realty cool products that
come to the Digit Test Centre for which we
can’t really write an in-depth review? We
examine their pros and cons here and give you
a quick rundown on what makes them tick.

Nike Zoom
Structure 19

Fitness for the geeks

W hether it was the famous Air series or the Flyknit Lunars,
we’ve long been fans of Nike shoes. So when they decided
to send us a pair of their latest running shoes, the Nike
Zoom Structure 19, we decided to get on to the fitness bandwagon in
complete geek fashion. Out came the wireless Jaybird X2, the Fitbit
Charge and a quick order was placed for a smartphone armband.
Armed to the hilt with tech, we hit the track with much enthusiasm

and the Zoom Structure 19 did not disappoint. It’s Dynamic Fit tech-
nology manages to stabilise the foot quite well while leaning into each
step. The cushioning absorbs impact fairly well while the Flymesh
body lets the shoe breathe. The Fly wire cables on the side make for a
snug fit; in fact a little too snug initially one might notice. The highly
contoured arch support does take a bit of getting used to especially
while walking, but when running it does help. If there’s a shoe that
gets lazy geeks off their behinds and out onto the road it’s the Structure
19. If the colours seems a little over the top, don’t worry they come in
black as well. It doesn’t come cheap and buying a pair will set you
back by m,795.

Steelcase Think Chair

For people who spend half their lives on a chair

Y our bottoms demand attention
when it comes to the comfort
of sitting on a chair. You must be
spending most of the day at office
and if working Long hours is a thing
which is quite common back at
our Labs, you deserve an ergo-
nomic chair. We were deLivered the
SteeLcase Think Chair and we didn’t
waste a singLe moment to open it
up. The excitement Led us to assem-
bLing the chair in under 15 minutes.
We received the 3D Knit Back var-
iant that sports a mesh back which
adapts according to the position
of your back against the chair. The
adjustable Lumbar support can be
raised or Lowered, making it more
comfortable for your spine, neck

•* . ••

and shouLders. A diaL pLaced beLow
the seat Lets you controL the angLe
of recLine for the back across four
actuation points. Since our hands
and arms aren't of the same shape,
the armrest has been made adjust-
able according to height, width,
pivot and depth which is a boon if
you shift between typing and simpLy
reLaxing on the chair. The wheeLs on
the chair are quite smooth to push
on the fLoor, so smooth that we are
even considering in turning it into a
temporary video doLLy setup. SteeL-
case has buiLt a reaLLy comfortable
chair and we have spent sitting
hundreds of hours on it. In fact,
this entire section has been written
whiLe seated on the Think Chair.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

GREED EXAMINED

ech TRIO Band Creator

A Lonely guitarist’s pal

W ith so much going on in life these days, it’s not really pos-
sible for musicians to find time everyday to get together
and jam. What this usually means as a guitarist is that
you end up playing alone with no backing music, or you play to the
same old static backing tracks that you have. DigiTech made the TRIO
Band Creator exactly for the scenario we’ve just painted. A small
pedal that can essentially give you the feel of having a drummer and
a bassist to jam with. It tries to give you that feeling of jamming alone
but having background sound at the same time to give you an illusion
of musical grandeur

At first, it takes a little time to get used to the TRIO, but unlike us,
if you watch the many YouTube videos featuring the TRIO before you
begin using it, it will save you a lot of trouble. So yes, trial and error is
good, but sometimes it’s just easier to check out YouTube for helpful
tutorials and videos of people who’ve actually used this product and
other similar contraptions. Learn from their story, it will only help.

With 7 genres, 12 styles per genre, 3 parts recordable and tempo
control to boot, the TRIO is really quite versatile, and to be honest, this
writer isn’t a good enough guitarist to really exploit its true potential.
It certainly helps to know all seven genres available - Blues, Pop,
Alternative, Rock, Country, R&b and Jazz. It also helps to simplify the
rhythm you play in order to train the drums and bass - we tried to
play complex riffs at first to train it and it was too confused to playback
anything melodious. Play simple chords in as simplified a strumming
method as possible for the riff you want, and it can really help you
make interesting music. Using the three recordable parts, you can
record a verse, bridge and chorus for the song, and switch between
them while playing by holding down the main switch with your foot.

We could write an in-depth review of the TRIO, but there isn’t
enough space here for that. The bottom line is, if you find yourself
playing guitar alone more often than you’d like, you need to save up
and buy one of these. It’s like having drummer and bassist pals, who
are instantly on the same wavelength as you, allow you hone your
riffing skills and let you experiment across the musical genres as well.
What’s more, you get all of this without having to tolerate any of the
extra baggage that comes along with band mates.

SEIKO Velatura

Flick of da wrist

B atteries might be getting smaller and more efficient but
there’s a new wave of watches that have done away
with it altogether... well almost. The SEIKO Velatura is an
amalgamation of technology and class, and is relatable for the
masses. You’d think kinetically powered watches might have a
nasty whirring noise but there’s none of that with the Velatura
unless you call yourself an audiophile. Because then you’re
just nitpicking.

The SEIKO Velatura does have a small battery and circuitry
to store time for its power save function. Being idle for 24
hours causes the watch to enter this mode and bring all
mechanical operations to a halt. Moreover, it retains its charge
for four years. So you can strap it on anytime and bring it to life
with a flick of your wrist.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in 25

GREED

Get your drool on and behold some of the
fondest, ostentatious and drop dead gorgeous
gadgets money can buy. Droolworthy?

Exospace B55

A nalog watches are making a comeback in the riddled world
of smartwatches and it’s better to let the Swiss do what
they do best. Coming from luxury watchmaker Breitling, rather
than stuffing the watch with a horde of sensors they have kept
everything analog except two LCD screens on the watch face.

This particular timepiece is directed towards pilots and the ones
who believe they can fly. Anyone would wonder what a watch
made specifically for pilots could do and the answer isn’t compli-
cated. The watch consists of a few flight time functions, letting
the pilot monitor ‘block’ times, the time taken between takeoff
and landing, and also lets them measure the speeds for a given
distance. Additionally, the watch also connects to a phone and
displays notifications for email, text messages, phone calls etc. The

Exospace B55 has a 46mm watch face made of sapphire crystal
with glare-proof coating on both sides, at a thickness of 15.25mm.
It has a black titanium case and is water resistant up to 100m,
a feature no pilot would want to test out. The watch works on
SuperQuartz movement, expected to run for around two months.
Given all the features listed above and the meticulous craftsman-
ship spent on this elegant timepiece, it surely won’t be cheap.

Sonorous VIII anc X

P lanning to shoot
your next pop music
video? Because we
have the perfect pair of
headphones for you to
showcase. Step aside
Beats, Final is the new
player with the bling.

Why you wonder?

Well, simply put, the
Sonorous VIII and X
have 24k gold plating
and accents around
the earcup rims. Now,
anything covered with gold might
remind you of a wealthy Saudi Arabian
prince but this product isn't just about
the exterior. Inside, the 50mm drivers
have been integrated with titanium

diaphragms, a standard that will
ensure the production of crispy sound.
Both the models are similar in almost
all the aspects, the interiors being
the exact replica. The only difference

between the VIII and X
are the earcups where
the X is completely
made of metal. Due
to a metal body, the
X weighs in higher at
630g while the VIII
weighs in at 490g.

Both have an imped-
ance of 16 ohm and the
company claims that
these headphones have
been hand-made. All
this bling clearly has
to be expensive. So, brace yourselves,
the Sonorous VIII is priced at around
^2.2 lakhs whereas the Sonorous X
is priced at around ^3.5 lakhs. Our
best wishes for that music video.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

APP WATCH

The Wu - Once Upon A Time
in ShaoLin

I f you think you are possibly the biggest hip-hop fan, think again.

The Wu-Tang Clan, one of the greatest Hip-Hop group, has
made just one copy of their album, The Wu-Once Upon A Time in
Shaolin. Once Upon A Time in Shaolin, cannot be commercially
exploited until 2103, although it can be released for free and for

listening at parties before
that. The album was released
in 2014, and was destined to
tour museums, art galleries
and such, before being
auctioned off. Martin Shkreli,
the former CEO of Turing
Pharmaceuticals, bought
the album for $2 million. Yep, that is how much the only copy of
the album sold for, and that is the amount one has to shell out
to disappoint millions of hip-hop fans all around the world, who
were keen on finally listening to the album. After the FBI arrested
Martin Shkreli on charges of securities fraud, the FBI got a lot
of queries asking for the album. Martin had to pay $5 million as
bail. If you’re one of the lucky ones who has that kind of money
and wants to get the album out of the wrong hands, you should
consider buying the most valuable album of all time.

Couach 5000 FLY

A regular reader of this section will agree that we love to cover
superyachts because nothing reeks of luxury than an expensive
yacht. And this month, we came across the Couach 5000 FLY,
a luxury marvel from France. The yacht has a total area of 500
square metres and a unique composite hull made of Kevlar. It isn’t
exactly clear on the decision of the material for the hull but we are
ready to believe that it offers a high degree of rigidity and lower
weight and not protection against bullets. The top of the deck has a
huge area which can potentially be turned into a helipad in case you
feel like travelling with your helicopter for your vacation trips. The
yacht has room for 12 guests and 10 crew members, and of course,
an array of luxury and entertainment facilities, including a Jacuzzi.
Capable of reaching a top speed of 30 knots and cruise at 24 knots,
the 5000 FLY will be able to cover a distance of more than 5000
km range on a full tank. This would mean that the yacht will be
able to cross the Atlantic Ocean in just 10 days. The price on this
masterpiece isn’t available, giving us enough time to start saving.

Define

Kindle users will know how useful it is to
simply tap on a word for its meaning and
definitions, something which is already

■ present in iOS but still yet to enter

Android. With Define, you get the similar
functionality of getting the meaning of a
word with a few taps. ALL you need to do
is Long press on a word and copy the text
which invokes a notification to browse
the meaning of the word. Of course,
you can select whether you want a
notification or directly show the meaning.
You get options to either download two offline dictionaries
Like Livio and Wordnet or you can refer to the online Urban
Dictionary. This feature only works in applications where you
have the functionality to copy the text.

Play Store: http://dgit.in/DefineAnd

Mirrativ

Watching game broadcasts is
fun. Whether Twitch or YouTube,
sometimes it serves as a guides
to beginners or techniques for the
viewers to improve in the game.
Currently, game broadcasts are
restricted only to PC and console
games, and until we actually get
to experience YouTube Gaming’s
upcoming broadcast feature, we fall
short on options for mobile games.
Mirrativ is a screen broadcasting
mobile application available in Android that Lets you
broadcast your device’s screen over to the Internet for
anyone with the Link to watch. To put it into an easier
perspective, think Like Periscope for mobile screen sharing
since most of the features are similar to Live broadcasting
apps except the video feed is the device’s screen.

Play Store: http://dgit.in/Mirrativ

If you’re an ardent desktop user, your
fingers will definitely be accustomed
to the alt+tab command to switch
between windows. One of Pintasking’s
feature tries to emulate the same
function on an Android phone for
power users. The basic idea here is
to pin or overlay an app icon on your
phone’s screen while switching to
another app. Then you will be able to
tap on the pinned icon to open the app
in the state you had Left. This is similar
to pressing the home or multi-tasking button and then
opening up another app but now it’s reduced to a single
step. There are much more features available in the app,
perfect for power users.

Play Store: http://dgit.in/Pintasking

Pintasking

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in 27

TEMPTATION

TV SHOW

In this section, we put stuff through the
grinder and ctosety examine whot comes
out; everything except gadgets, because
there’s more to life than just that

TV SHOW

Jessica Jones

Pleasant surprise!

M arvel’s Jessica
Jones follows
the life of Jessica
Jones, played by
Krysten Ritter, who is a private
detective in Hell’s Kitchen,
after her career as a vigilante
superhero took a tragic turn.
Jessica is a gifted individual
and often takes clients who
are gifted like her. Using her
unconventional methods
of investigation, she helps
anyone who’ll cut her a pay-
check. The series manages to
revolve around Jessica, despite
the several sub-plots, which
often go off-track. The series
has been widely acclaimed
for its portrayal of dark
topics such as rape, sexual
assault and PTSD, which are
often neglected in the MCU.
Krysten Ritter delivers one

of her best performances.

The series one of the very few
shows, which dares to diverge
from TV stereotypes. If you
liked Marvel’s Daredevil, you
will enjoy this one. Must watch
for Marvel fans.

Rating: ★

- Abhishek Balaji

Man in the
Castle

Had the tables been turned

I f we are to limit our-
selves to the fictional
world, then the contri-
butions of Indiana Jones
and Captain America is what
kept the Nazis at bay. Jokes
aside, World War II was truly
the race for the atomic bomb.
And The Man in the High
Castle explores a world had
the Nazi’s been the first to
drop the atomic bomb. They
did and they won, the world
was brought to its knees and
life carried on as it always
has, except for a few glaring
differences - at least that’s
the premise of this scintil-
lating book.

Huge portions of America
were captured by allied
powers. Going by how his-
tory is written by the victors,
the allies that we refer to
here are the Japanese and
the Germans, obviously. The
entire Pacific coast is under
Japanese occupation and the
entire eastern coast along
with a huge portion of the
central United States have
been brought under Germa-
ny’s Great Third Reich. Both
occupations, separated, by
a narrow neutral zone. Ring
any bells? East and West
Germany, anyone?

Adopted from a 1962 novel
of the same name by Philip
K. Dick, the series starts off
at a proper pace which might
seem a bit slow at first given
that character development
and other movie devices take
time to come together. But we
recommend sticking with it
for a while, as the experience
is pretty darn rewarding.
Going by what we’ve seen so
far, the series seems likely to
break out into a Colder War
between the American resist-
ance against its oppressors
which might truly be a proxy
for a bigger battle between
the once great allies.

Rating: ★ ★★★☆

-Mithun Mohandas

Rush Hour

Detective Carter and
Detective Lee, from
the famous movie
franchise of the same
name, are back with a
reboot to once again
make you Laugh your
Lungs out. We do hope
for Jackie Chan and
Chris Tucker cameo.

Billions

Billionaires are
untouchabLe! Or is it
so? US attorney Chuck
Rhoades seems to
disagree as he sets out to
uncover the underhanded
dealings of hedge fund
king, Bobby Axe’ Axelrod.
Who’s going to win this
blitz? Take a guess.

Making a Murderer

It isn’t a surprise if the
innocent are convicted
for heinous crimes. The
same is the case with
Steven Avery. See how
the rich and influential
oppress the weak and
what happens if the
weak retaliate in this
real Life adaptation.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

TEMPTATION

Bored out of your wits? Can’t think of any
fun thing to do? Worry not, we’ it take that
burden off your shoulders in our Things To
Do section every month. Read on!

Slack:

If you’re vying for productivity, you need
to consider using a robust communication
medium. You can try but IM services don’t
give you enhanced features to supercharge
your conversations. Slack combines a
plethora of plugins and modules, ensuring
that you almost stop using email to
communicate with your team members. It’s
directed more towards a work environment
but that doesn’t mean you can’t use it
with your friends. Go on, take a chance, give this collaborative
communication app a much-needed try out.

App Store: http://dgit.in/iOSSlack
Play Store: http://dgit.in/SlackAnd

new vear

"Concentrate ait your thoughts upon the
work in hand. The Sun's rays do not burn until
brought to a focus" - Alexander Graham Bell

I t’s 2016 and your social media feeds must be flooded with
‘new year, new me’ cringe-worthy posts. Either you will
make resolutions for the rest of the year and religiously try
to accomplish them, or breeze away just like you have been
for the previous years. If you’re of the former kind, then fear not,
we have compiled a list of apps and services you should definitely
adopt into your daily lives in order to have a productive year ahead.

Wunderlist:

The first step to be productive is to plan out
all your tasks using to-do lists and reminders
bound within deadlines. A bunch of apps offer
this functionality and among them, we would
recommend Wunderlist. The reason to opt for
Wunderlist is the simple and beautiful design,
yet delivering a platform wide app with useful
features to make to-do lists and reminders.
App Store: http://dgit.in/WunderlistiOS
Play Store: http://dgit.in/WunderlistAnd

Google Keep:

Simple is better. Google Keep certainly
reassures us the previous statement by being a
simple tool to create notes and checklists in a
simple way, implementing only useful features.
You can even doodle and attach images to your
notes, colour code each code and all your saved
notes will be synced to your Google account.
App Store: http://dgit.in/KeepiOS
Play Store: http://dgit.in/KeepAnd

Sunrise:

Again, there are several calendar apps available
on all the popular smartphone platforms. And
for this category, our interest has shifted to
Sunrise which essentially connects to Google
Calendar, Microsoft Exchange and iCloud, and
several other apps such as Facebook, Evernote,
Wunderlist, etc., striving to be the best possible
calendar / reminder app in existence. It
combines all the listed reminders, birthdays
and any form of events into one single place.

App Store: http://dgit.in/iOSSunrise
Play Store: http://dgit.in/SunriseAnd

U r^rt- « ym

Outlook:

With the launch of Outlook on both Android
and iOS, Microsoft has delivered the best
email client for mobile. It is a complete
powerhouse which brings your contacts and
calendars into a single seamless layout,
making you accomplish everything within the
app. It prioritises the most important emails
based on your contacts and address book. It
connects email accounts across Office 365,
Gmail, Yahoo etc.

App Store: http://dgit.in/MOutlookiOS
Play Store: http://dgit.in/OutlookAnd

Evernote:

When productivity is the major concern we
cannot miss out Evernote. It’s one of the few
apps which has a notification widget in iOS.

You scan your documents, business cards and
whiteboards and share it within the app with
the new chat. Its task reminder is similar to the
mainstream apps with alarms and all. If you’re
not feeling up for typing your tasks or notes,
just dictate. To get started, just create an account or sign-in with an
existing one to sync your notes across devices. Happy note-taking!
App Store: http://dgit.in/iOSEvernote
Play Store: http://dgit.in/AndEvernote

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Digital life

Tech up your pet

Get control of all the discrepancies
invovLed in taking care of a pet using
the latest gadgets in the market

Neyyapam? Nankhatai?

Google may launch an online poll to name
the next dose of sweet candy for Android!

http://dgit.in/NAndroid

The internet's

cream of the crop

for 2016

Abhijit Dey

abhijit.dey@9dot9.in

W hile you start off the New
Year with full vigour and
enthusiasm, still recov-
ering from last year’s
hangover, you must be looking forward to
what 2016 has to offer. We believe that you
derive happiness mostly from the internet
so we set out to list the most informa-
tive, interesting websites on the internet.
Searching every nook and cranny of the
interwebs, an extensive sheet was pre-
pared and only the best of the best made
the cut for this list. It wasn’t easy, but had
to be done, because you deserve the best.

When it comes to consuming con-
tent from the internet, we at Digit brag
about having high standards for our
sources. Our preferences involve articles
and videos which are well-researched,
well -written with a dash of humour. The
categories would essentially include sci-
ence, technology, humour, DIY guides and
absorbing videos. Of course, listing out
every website we follow could take a sepa-
rate issue altogether. However, we’ve still
tried to give you a glimpse into what web
destinations and people we follow in our
daily lives. We highly recommend them to
you. Let us know how it goes and whether
they find a place on your list, too.

Best websites to visit

Product Hunt - A great place to discover
a wide variety of products including soft-
ware, services, games,
books, etc. If you’re
curious enough, you’ll
end up spending a lot
of time here,
htt ps://www. prod u ct-
hunt.com/

We compiled a list of
the best places to visit
on the internet to keep
you occupied throughout
2016. As a bonus, we’ve
also recommended a few
prominent people
to follow. Click away!

The Oatmeal - A popular web comics on
the internet, depicting everyday scenarios
based on funny fictional characters, The
Oatmeal has garnered a huge fan base. You
can’t ignore the comic strips uploaded here.
http://theoatmeal.com/

The Onion - Not intended for the gul-
lible kind, The Onion is a news satire pub-
lication which reports on trending news,
both real and fictional,
ending up confusing the
naive minds. Legend has
it, they have a readership
of 4.3 trillion.
http://www.theonion.com/

The Intercept - Snowden took the
internet by storm after he revealed NSA’s
snooping techniques. The news broke out
with the help of the co-founding editors of
this publication and now they have devised a
process for concerned citizens willing to leak
similar scarring revelations to the public.
https://theintercept.com/

Nerdophiles - If you’re a nerd at heart
and completely geek-out on content related
to movies, TV shows, videogames, books
etc., you should definitely follow this website
regularly to stay updated on nerdy content.
http://www.nerdophiles.com/

Upvoted - A lot of information is shared
on Reddit and to take a step further with the
content shared in this community, the com-
pany launched Upvoted to create original
content including edi-
torial pieces, podcasts,
videos and graphic art.
You’ll find trends from
the frontpage of Reddit
covered here.
https://upvoted.com/

upvoted

xkcd - This is a series of stick-figure web
comics covering subjects of technology, sci-
ence, mathematics and relationships with a
humourous spin to them. Even though the
artist worked at NASA previously, you will
manage to get all his jokes.
http://xkcd.com/

Instructables - If you were to
imagine a website directed towards crea-
tors, Instructables is a manifest of your
imagination. Discover thousands of pro-
jects across a number of platforms and
categories, and share
your creations with
the world.
http://www. instructa-
bles. com/

j Instructables

History Today - There are some people
who love reading historical pieces about for-
gotten practices, wars, products and people.
Such an interest can be fulfilled at History
Today, especially in the Long Reads section.
http://www.historytoday.com/

Popular Science - This website can be
your daily dose of science through stories on
recent trends, developments and news. Once
you start reading it’s really difficult to stop.
http://www.popsci.com/

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Apple before Droids?

Ever wondered why the Apple App store
has more apps than the Google Play Store?

http://dgit.in/Droidb4iOS

App Store ... App?

Mircosoft released an app on the Play Store
titiled ‘Microsoft Apps', which just lists their apps.

http://dgit.in/MSappstore

Geek life

PBS Frontline - Investigative jour-
nalism at its best, there’s plenty of docu-
mentaries and short films on controversial
topics presented with great detail and
narration. Our lunch
breaks usually are
spent on this website.
http://dgit.in/FrontlinePBS

Best subreddits to subscribe

Popularly revered as the front page of
the internet, Reddit has assembled a cult
following across generations. We could
have listed Reddit under the best websites
section but it wouldn’t have been fair
since it’s like a gateway to the best things
happening on the internet. Dependent
on user generated content, you’ll come
across everything, right from the funniest
memes, GIFs, comments etc., to random
acts of kindness, and not to forget the
internet’s favourite, cats. Once you join
Reddit, you can subscribe to subred-
dits, a pseudonym for communities
dedicated to specific topics. Subreddits
witness interesting discussions and also
friendly banter, with a different level of
trolling, aided with contextual memes
and reaction GIFs. You are free to choose
from the following subreddits but if you
want to be a better person, you seriously
need to subscribe to all of them. When
it comes to Reddit, our preferences are
directed to funny GIFs, witty comments,
mind-blowing realisations, etc. And to
let you in on a secret, this is a list of our
own subscriptions, apart from the inap-
propriate ones we can’t mention here.

/r/IAmA - If not the best, this is among
the most popular subreddit conducting
interactive discussions with prominent
members from the field such as actors, scien-
tists, artists, etc. Users can directly ask ques-
tions, potentially invoking an interesting
series of Q&A for you to read up.

/r/YouShouldKnow - Here you’ll
stumble upon really helpful tips and tricks,
and simple workarounds to improve your
skills and productivity on menial tasks.

/r/TodayILearned - This subreddit can
be quite informative with users speaking
about accidental discoveries of that-person-

TWEET PEEPS TO FOLLOW

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

@neiltyson

It would be o shame if you aren't aware
who Neil Tyson is and if you aren’t,
follow him right now, for science.

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

Touted as the real-life Tony Stark, Musk
is all set out to harvest solar energy on a
massive scale and colonise Mars.

Robert Scoble

@Scobleizer

Quite popular on the tech front, Robert is
always on the lookout for the best inno-
vations and technology around him.

Neil Gaiman

@neilhimself

There are several writers on Twitter
but not all of them are as funny as Neil
Gaiman. Follow him for witty replies.

Rob Delaney

@robdelaney

Thousands of comedians are present on
Twitter but Rob's sense of humour and
random mentions to people are funny.

in-that-movie or simply coming across
obscure facts about things or people.

/r/dataisbeautiful/ - Another popular
subreddit, here you’ll find informative vis-
ualisations of data in the form of graphs,
charts and maps, to display data in a easier
and straightforward way.

/r/DIY - Personal projects by Redditors
are explained meticulously with a step-by-
step guide from scratch until the finished
stage. The projects aren’t just your regu-
larhousehold hacks but essentially expert
level setups of furniture and crazy customi-
sationsin everyday objects.

/r/oddlysatisfying - For all the folks
with a high sense of perfection, symmetry
or a mild case of OCD for everything, this
subreddit will give you a weird and odd
satisfaction on every click.

/r/AskReddit - Reddit has a huge com-
munity and you are bound to get more than
a hundred different answers for a single
question. This subreddit gives you the same

opportunity to ask your heart out and in
turn receive real and hilarious replies from
your fellow Redditors.

/r/nosleep/ - A place for budding writers
to pen down thrilling horror stories, this
is hands-down our favourite subreddit at
Digit, owing to the quality of the stories
written. No one really knows whether the
stories are true or not.

/r/ThingsCutlnHalfPorn/ - Among the
best recent discoveries on our side, expect
images of cross-sections of various things
such as guns, planes and even organs.

/r/photoshopbattles/ - If you consider
yourself a Photoshop ninja, this subreddit
is where you can test your skills. Or you
could just scroll through all the posts and
have short fits of laughter looking at funnily
morphed images, face swaps etc.

/r/HybridAnimals/ - Have you ever
seen a seahorse with the face of a T-rex?
Or maybe a dog’s face on a penguin’s body?
They were probably posted first on this
subreddit before they went viral around
the internet. You’ll find other such face and
body swaps of animals here.

/r/Showerthoughts/ - The shower is
where the philosopher in you wakes up
and comes up with daunting thoughts
and ideas. Here, you’ll come across never
before though of realisations.

/r/FanTheories/ - Remember reading
about the theory about The Joker being
the actual hero in The Dark Knight? It first
appeared here along with several other
theories across different franchises.

/r/simulated - Physics experiments on
non-Newtonian fluids are pure pleasure
to watch. This is where creators and
enthusiasts post their computer animated
simulations to satisfy your eyes.

/r/PerfectTiming - Well-timed shots
manage to reveal something spectacular
or something hilarious. The perfect timing
when someone gets punched, the perfect
timing when a bubble bursts, you’ll find
all such photos posted here. Cl

FRONTLINE

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Feature

OnePlus X Champagne

OnePLus announced a Champagne version of
the OnePLus X, the middle child in the lineup.

http://dgit.in/OPXChampagne

Hover-man!

In a daring robbery, a man glides into a store
on a hoverboard and steals a crate of drinks

http://dgit.in/HvrBrdTheft

Tech up your pet

Do you have a dog who keeps wandering off? Or
perhaps a cat that turns your house upside down when
you are away? We have got you covered

Adamya Sharma

adamya.sharma@digit.in

T he best part about having pets is
never having to feel lonely and
making a friend for life. Be it a
dog, a cat, a turtle, a bird or even
a hamster, pets are a natural stress buster
and mood uplifter. You want to spend all
your time cuddling and coddling your
little munchkins and even while you are
away, they have you worried and con-
cerned for their safety and well-being. You
never ‘get’ or ‘buy’ a pet, you ‘have’ them,
just like children.

Now’s your chance to do a little
something for your little critters. The way
technology has improved your life all this
while, it can vastly enrich your pet’s day-
to-day existence too. If you can have a cell
phone, so can your pets. If you can have
geeky toys, so can your little trotter. If you
can have a GPS tracker, so can your pre-
cious animals. Time and technology have
changed the way we interact with our pets,
and today, there are countless solutions to
solve your and your pet’s peeves. So, here’s

a list of all things tech that you and your
furry friend can enjoy together.

Garmin Delta Upland Three-
in-one sporting dog collar

And you thought Garmin just made your
fitness bands. The Garmin Delta Upland
is a three-in-one dog collar that consists of
an electronic training collar, a BarkLimiter,
and a remote beeper to help locate dogs
that are out of sight. Although the collar is
best used on hunting dogs, it can also be a
good device to train your pooch to be more
disciplined. The Delta Upland includes
tones, vibration, and up to 36 levels of
momentary and continuous stimulation.

It also houses an LCD display to switch

among different training modes. The
controller can be paired with three collars
at one time, so if you have more than one
dog, this will be a good investment for you.
The bark identification technology in the
Delta Upland uses accelerometer tech-
nology and is able to distinguish between
barking and other vocalisations. Priced at
$261 (^18,000 approx.) the Garmin Delta
Upland can be ordered from Amazon.

TrackSafe Buddy

TrackSafe Buddy is a wearable device for
pets that will help you locate your pets
using GPS. The device connects to your
smartphone using an app that is available
for both iOS and Android andf usage of the
app is free for the first 12 months. The main
unit is 6mmx36mmxl6 mm in size and has
a 500 mAh rechargeable battery with a
standby time of a little less than 72 hours.
The device also comes with a 6 month
warranty for any manufacturing defects.
TrackSafe Buddy is priced at ^8,999 on the

Tracksafe website but can be obtained for a
lesser price through e-commerce portals.

FroliCat POUNCE

FroliCat Pounce is an automatic hide-and-
seek toy for cats. If you have a cat, you
know they love to chase moving objects.
Cats can pounce on moving objects for
hours on end and that’s where FroliCat
comes in. The toy features an electronic
mouse called Marshal Mouse who zips
around on a circular path. The mouse also
reverses direction and twitches back and
forth to provide hours of playtime for your

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Reminders to annoy!

GoogLe Calender adds reminders, so now you can
start hen-pecking yourself for every little thing.

http://dgit.in/GoogleCalReminders

Multi room support!

Chromecast finally ads high resolution
streaming and multi-room playback

http://dgit.in/ChromeCastMulti Feature

feline. The device is 33 x 30.5 x 7.6 cm in
size and runs on 3 AA batteries. FroliCat
POUNCE costs around $35 (?2500
approx.) and can be obtained from one of
the many e-commerce websites.

Tail Lights

Yes, you read it right. Tail lights are not
just for your vehicles anymore. In fact,
these LED strips of light are now used
to keep a track of horses. If you are one
who has one or many horses for pets,
this gadget is sure to delight. Tail Lights
is the first LED safety system for horses.
Tail Lights attach to the horse’s tail glow
in various colour patterns which make
it easier to spot your horse. These lights
are water resistant, so you can hose your
horse with its tail lights on. Tail lights cost
anywhere from $49 for the basic version

to $499 for the Pro version and can be
shipped from tail-lights.com. If you go out
and get a horse just to use this cool gadget,
you’ll be putting the cart before the horse.

Petzi Treat cam

Wouldn’t you love to pamper your dog
with some treats when you are not home.
Problem is, that one treat just won’t do
and many at a time would be gobbled
up in a split second. Petzi Treat cam not
only solves that problem, it also acts as a
security camera for your pet. You can check
in on your pet from your smartphone or

tablet and the Petzi Cam unit also allows
you to speak to your pet while you are
away from home. The camera has a wide
angle lens and a universal treat launcher,
where you can fit in any dry, crunchy
treats. These treats can be dispensed,
three at a time, with an iOS or Android
app that connects to the unit. Priced at
$169 (^11,209 approx), this one is a must
for paranoid pet owners.

Locato Smart ID Tag

Locato is a smart ID tag by Locato India,
that can be hooked on to your pet’s collar.
The tag is NFC enabled and also has a QR
code which can be scanned. This way, if
your pet is ever lost and found by someone
else, the tag can be scanned using the QR
code or NFC. The scan will fire up an app
with the pet owner’s information and will

notify the owner with a GPS location of
the pet. The app also gives pet owners an
option of setting a finder’s reward, making
it a cool, battery-less pet finding solution at
a price of $32 (^2,321 approx).

Puppy Tweets

One has to be obsessed with their pet to
have this little tag. Puppy tweets does
exactly what the name says. It is a tag with
a sound and motion sensor, which attaches
to a pet’s collar on one end, and to a USB
receiver on a computer, at the other. While
pet owners are away, if the pet moves or

makes a sound, the tag communicates with
the USB receiver, which then sends users a
tweet describing the action. Puppy Tweets
can be bought for as low as $16 (^1,060)

Tractive Motion Pet
Activity Collar

A healthy pet is a happy pet and just like we
have fitness trackers to keep our health in
check, pets can get their own activity tracker
with the Tractive Motion collar. This smart
motion tracker keeps your pet’s daily activi-
ties in check by taking into account steps,
movements, playtime and other additional
information provided by its sensors.it
also measures the environmental factors
affecting your pet with an option of cus-
tomising settings to suit a particular breed.
Users can also set goals for their pets and
monitor their growth using an app available

on iOS, Android and Windows store. The
Tractive Motion costs ^7,999 and can be
ordered from Oliver Pet Care Solutions, an
India based pet tech firm.

Those were some cool gadgets you can
buy for your pet. The world of pet tech-
nology is booming with such devices and for
every one device on this list, there are many
counterparts from other brands as well. So,
here’s hoping that your pets remain safe and
sound but just incase you want to be extra
cautious or if your goal is just to pamper
your pooch, technology will always come to
your rescue. El

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Toolbox

QnA

Our readers write to us with fresh
QC troubleshooting advice and we're
ww only too glad to oblige them

Tips & tricks

Uncover hidden gems and Houdini
O O moves in Wolfram Alpha, OS X El
Capitan 10.11, and more...

What's the best Lockscreen
replacement app for
your Android device?

How many times have you actually given a second thought about your
lockscreen? There are tons of ways you can customise it to suit your needs, and
we bring you the best of them.

Dhruv Kumar

readersletters@digit.in

T he beauty of an operating
system lies mainly in the
effortlessness with which it
amalgamates form and function.
Android, known for its highly customis-
able nature, has left no stone unturned
in handing over the reins of power to the
user, which includes letting you change
the lock screen. This particular feature
lets you do everything right from replying
to messages to taking pictures, provided
you have the right settings and applica-
tions activated and installed, respectively.

With a plethora of useful lock screen
replacement applications available out
there, you might end up neglecting the
need to unlock your phone for the entire
day. You might even mistake a couple
of them to be one of those home screen
launchers. We take a brief look at a few of
the more useful ones up for grabs.

1. Cover

This one’s a very thoughtfully designed
application that’ll enable you to do almost
everything that one would not gener-
ally expect from a lock screen. Of course,
there are always two sides to the coin.

One major drawback of this application
is that you cannot lock your screen from
unauthorised users. The option to secure
the lockscreen with a passcode or pattern
does not exist here.

The first look of the lock screen won’t
exactly grab your attention as it’s just a
simple background with a vertical dock
of icons displayed towards the left of the

screen. The real magic starts when you
hold on to an icon and swipe towards the
right. The application opens up in the
background, giving you a quick view of
its home page, undoubt-
edly reminiscent of the
Blackberry Hub-like feel
of the not-so-long lasting
Blackberry touch phones.

That’s not it; these icons
in the vertical dock also
change with time and loca-
tion, along with the lock
screen background. So you
have timely access to the
right apps.

Cover will also give
you the power to switch
between apps without
having to actually unlock
the screen, wiping out the
need to unlock the device
for regular usage. An intel-
ligent lock screen replace-
ment application that
focuses more on usability
and function rather than
form; if you want to quickly
peek into who messaged
you last or check the latest
score update from your
sports application - all
right on your lock screen -
then hit the Play Store and
look no further.

2. Echo Notification
Lockscreen

Now here’s a lock screen for
those of us who don’t like

pending notifications and also believe in
attention to detail. Echo Notification Lock-
screen, as the name suggests, has notifica-
tions as its base feature, which it displays
right up front with detailed
information. What makes
it stand out from your
regular lock screen apps
is that all the notifications
are in-depth, expanded and
separate. This means, each
of your WhatsApp mes-
sages will be shown as an
individual notification on
the lock screen rather than
the usual ‘3 new messages’.

What’s more, you can
tap the notification to open
it right on your lock screen
and even long press to
snooze it and be reminded
again at a later time - a
highly useful element. The
notifications can also be
manually classified into
groups like Priority and
Social for a better organ-
ised view. For securing
your device you have the
ability to set a pattern lock.

Once again a must-have
if you want most of your
work to be done quickly, by
checking your notifications.

3. Go Locker

This one’s for the customi-
sation-junkies. It won’t be
hyperbole to say that this
lock screen replacement is

App Glance on Cover

Neat ‘Echo Lockscreen’

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Workshop

We tell you how to create a seamless
content consumption life to attain true
entertainment bliss across all devices

Your new resto-manager

Clicktable.com launches its new cloud based
software for restaurants, making front desk
management more efficient

Feature

a whole set of apps in one,
with a highly customisable
lock screen equipped with
thousands of themes to
choose from and a whole lot
of personalization options.

The themes can be
the usual abstract back-
grounds, one that looks like
a Windows phone home
screen or even one that
changes its form with the
current weather. The cus-
tomisable options available
at your fingertips range
from the ability to turn off
notifications to hiding the
status bar or date and time.
For securing your device,
this lock screen replace-
ment would probably give
you even more than the
stock lock screen - right
from the usual passcode
or pattern to a neat gesture
unlock, which is entirely
exclusive to this app.

If you’re one of those
who wants to be offered
something fresh every time
you hit the lock button,
this one’s for you. You can
even set your themes to a
‘random’ mode so as to not
have to manually change
them frequently. With a
new theme welcoming
your eyes every time you
turn on your screen, this
lock screen replacement
application is more than
just a sweet treat and will
add a dash of excitement to
the seemingly humdrum
activity of switching on
your phone.

4. Next Lockscreen

Right when Microsoft
decided to have a home
screen launcher of their
own, they also came up
with a beautiful lock
screen replacement appli-
cation for their Android

Cover Lockscreen Home

Microsoft’s Next Lockscreen

ZUI Locker - Swipe up
control panel

fans. This one amalgam-
ates the best of both, form
and function, seamlessly.

The first look of the lock
screen is sure to grab eye-
balls, as you’re compelled
to notice the incredible
photo backgrounds pro-
vided by Bing, which can
be periodically updated.
Once you begin to tinker
around with it, you’ll find
a Launchpad at the bottom
of the screen when you
swipe up. This combines
applications and quick set-
tings, and will remind you
a little of the iOS 9 quick
settings. What’s interesting
here is that the apps in
the launchpad change
according to your location.
Basically, the applications
you mostly only use when
you’re in the office will
pop up right when you
reach work, by intelligently
picking up patterns in the
course of your usage.

As for other customisa-
tion options, Microsoft lets
you manage which notifica-
tions are displayed, change
the weather settings, show
the music player and also
gives you the ability to hide
apps on the launchpad. For
securing your device, the
usual passcode and pattern
lock options are available.

A neat and well-
designed lock screen that
fulfils its purpose with
elan and doesn’t carry a
monotonous feel, this one’s
a keeper.

5. ZUI Lockscreen

One of the more obscure
options available on the
Google Play Store, this
lock screen replacement
application will surely
add colour to both your
device and your life, with

its smooth animations, bright colours and
overall fresh look.

The swipe-up control panel which
forms the base of this lock screen needs
a special mention. On swiping up from
the bottom you’ll notice a colourful panel
filling the screen with quick settings and
lock screen settings. Here you can even
customize the app shortcuts and set them
according to your convenience. Adding to
the life of the lock screen is an animated
parallax for a wallpaper. So if you tilt your
phone towards the right, the background
will move towards the left giving you a
panoramic view. Theming options, though
limited, are also available to your liking.

The level to which you can secure
your device with this lock screen is also
noteworthy. For your safety and privacy,
there are options to even lock the status
bar or hide message previews altogether,
along with the usual passcode and pattern
lock, which also come with a colourful
and interactive twist. This is truly the
app’s highlight, as it even lets you unlock
your phone by tapping on images of your
favourite people by replacing them as
numbers. It makes the entire process fun
and your device secure - especially from
that one particularly nosy relative who’s
always peeking into your phone to get a
glimpse of your passcode. This lock screen
replacement application will inspire a
smile every time you unlock your device.

Conclusion

Lock screens were generally used to
prevent restrict access to your device or to
prevent accidental screen brushes from
opening an application. Today, however,
with its myriad features, the lock screen
actually makes you forget actually having
to unlock your device, along with deliv-
ering a customized experience of their
own. To reinforce and step up the entire
experience of each of these applications, I
would also recommend you download the
launchers that come with them, if any.

As for the one we liked best, it’s the
Next Lockscreen by Microsoft, which is
wonderfully minimal in design and meets
all your needs. If none of these fir your
needs, you can browse the Play Store and
pick one of the several hundred other
options available. El

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Q&A

Dropbox Shuts Down Mailbox

Dropbox, which acquired Mailbox for dose to $100
million in 2013, has announced that it is shutting
down for good. http://dgit.in/ByeMailbox

Fi refox OS

RIP Firefox OS

Mozilla announced that it will no Longer
sell or develop Firefox OS smart phones or
devices. http://dgit.in/RIPfirefoxOS

Powering the Oculus, cleaning the
cabinet and silly phone problems

Our readers are at it again and we're here to solve their peculiar problems

E Configuration for Oculus Rift

I need some help to purchase a high end
customized computer for my college lab. I
work in my college and the basic require-
ment is to run a 3D driving simulator. The
simulator is programmed in Java and
uses JMonkeyEngine (JRE8). As per my
research, the requirement for the simulator
to provide the for best performance are:

1) Processor > 3 GHz

2) 8 GB Memory

3) NVIDIA GTX 970 or better

Aside from these, here are some consid-
erations that need to be taken into account.

1) Cost should be less than ^50,000/-

2) HDMI port & 64-bit support (for Oculus
Rift DK2)

I have a few other related queries:

1) Which one would be best keeping in
mind the requirements, AMD or Intel
processors?

2) Are there any other cheaper equivalent
to the Nvidia GTX 970?

3) What else would be required to meet
the above said specification, say
power supply(600-750 W), cooling
systems, cabinet?

Awaiting your reply, as I have to
forward the procurement draft to the col-
lege authorities.

-Viput Nair

0 Since you wish to run the simulator on
the Oculus Rift, we’ll read up on Oculus’
official recommendations noted on a blog
post highlighting its hardware require-
ments. (http://dgit.in/RiftDK2HW) So you'll
need atleast:

• Intel Core i5 - 4590 or better

• GTX 970 or better

• 8 GB RAM of more

The processor costs ^16.4K but for a
little less you can get a newer gen CPU
- Intel Core i5 - 6500 for ?15.8K. To bal-
ance out the cost, the cheapest compat-
ible motherboard we could find online

was the ASUS B150M-A D3 for ?6,868.
Likewise, for the RAM we found the
Crucial PC4-1700 that cost ^2,500, so two
modules would cost you ^5,000. As for
the video card, the ZOTAC GeForce GTX
970 ZT-90101-10P costs ^25,950 which is
quite a good deal but it is likely that these
components might not be the cheapest
options by the time you search for them
so check out a few price comparison web-
sites before making the purchase. These
newer generation of CPUs are quite cool
so you can make do with a stock cooler
but if you were to move to code with
higher computational workload then an

Powering the Oculus

aftermarket cooler like the CoolerMaster
TX3 would be an economical and prudent
choice. Throw in one or two extra 120mm
fans and you should be set. Your power
requirements with the above configura-
tion is around 400 W. So by incorporating
a little headroom, any 550 W power
supply should be enough. The Corsair
VS550 is a pretty decent power supply for
^3,100. A Cabinet hasn't been accounted
for, you can pick any cabinet that has
enough clearance for the graphics card.
And we’re assuming you guys already
have hard drives.

The cost for these comes down to a
little over ^57,000 (without HDD/Cab-
inet/Monitor).

As for the other queries:

1. If you are looking at an equivalent

in terms of benchmark scores, the

AMD FX 8320 and FX 8350 which
cost roughly 12K and 14.5K will do the
job. But here's something interesting
to note, AMD came out with Project
Quantum which is a pre-built machine
for VR units using AMD's Fiji graphics
card, however, this uses an Intel pro-
cessor. This is likely because there are
certain instruction sets that Intel pro-
cessors are better built to handle. Plus
the savings aren’t that great, so unless
a side by side comparison is done, it’d
be wise to go with the configuration
that Oculus has recommended.

2. The Oculus Rift has two screens, each
being of 1080 x 1200 resolution/pixel
dimension. Higher resolution requires
more memory. GTX 960 is designed
to optimally utilise 2GB, though 4GB
variants exist now. The GTX 970 is
designed for multi-display setups
with increased bandwidth to push
more data. And it's not just the resolu-
tion. You even require a frame rate of
75 FPS or more to reduce the chances
of getting nasty headaches with the
Oculus. 75 FPS is a high frame rate
and your graphics card needs to
handle not one but two displays at
the same time. While the JMonkey
Engine simulator will not be resource
heavy and a GTX 960 should easily
be able to manage the load, we’re not
sure since we haven't benchmarked
an Oculus Rift. So if you can manage
to get a GTX 960 from someone for a
short period of time you might be able
to run the simulation on two screens
to check if the display is smooth (75
FPS or more).

E Doing the Shuffle

I have an Apple iPod Shuffle. It’s quite old

so it works only with Windows XP. Recently,

my desktop computer had some trouble

in starting up. The CPU flashes the power

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Google stops selling Nexus 6

You will no Longer be able to buy the Nexus 6
officially, hinting at being permanently discontinued.

http://dgit.in/Nexus6Google

Q&A

indicator but the HDD access indicator
does not Light up. More recently, neither
of the two Lights Lit up. It is a very old PC,
so I don’t want to fix it. I also have a Dell
Inspiron 1464 Laptop (2009 model) . I was
thinking if I could emulate Windows XP on
it and use my iPod. If it is possible, please
list the steps to do the same. My laptop's
configuration is the same as the original,
only the hard disk has been changed to a
Samsung 500 GB HDD (I don’t remember
the model number).

-Ayush Behera

0 All iPod Shuffles work with Windows
7. It’s just that the bare minimum OS
required for you to sync them happens to
be Windows XP for iPod Shuffle 3rd Gen
and 4th Gen and Windows 2000 for
previous generation of the Shuffles. If you
are facing any problems, try to reset the
device (http://dgit.in/ShuffleReset) or use
the iPod Reset Utility (http://dgit.in/
iPod Reset) if it happens to be a 1st or 2nd
Gen device.

Even if you do go ahead and emulate
a new Windows installation then the
moment you try to sync your Shuffle with
the new iTunes installation, it’ll wipe your
iPod. So the whole point of going through
the entire process is moot as you’ll lose all
the files on the device anyway.

Wonky tone firmware

I'm facing some strange problem on my
ASUS Zenfone 5. When ever I browse on
any browser and then click on the back
button, the phone leads me to another
app. I can't find out why it happens. I
hope I'll get best answer from you. Oh
yes, Your magazine is fantastic. I read
every article with more attention than my
study materials.

-Bipiab Kumar

0 Hey Bipiab, it’s nice to know that our
articles are more interesting than

coursework. You’re not the only one facing
this issue Bipiab. It’s been around for
quite a while and is more prevalent if your
phone is running Android 4.4 KitKat
(http://dgit.in/Fone5glitch). Since ASUS
has provided an official Android 5.0
upgrade (http://dgit.in/Zenfone5Lolipop),
we’d suggest upgrading to the latest
firmware and figuring out if the problem
persists after the firmware upgrade. If it
does, then please get in touch with ASUS
for a replacement, provided your phone is
under warranty, if not try installing a
custom ROM and try to replicate the issue.
Hopefully, it should go away with a
firmware update since this seems to be a
software issue.

[E I need my data

A few days back there was a problem with
my PC. My computer was accidentally
shutting down every few minutes. I checked
and figured out that my computer’s hard
disk had crashed. Please tell me if I can
restore my data.

-Gaurav Agarwat

0 If your HDD is still functional, then the
best course of action is to install an
operating system on another hard drive
and use the faulty drive as a slave. This
way, even if it does crash, it won’t kill your
ongoing session. Now begin backing up
your data and use a deduplication
software (just analyse, don’t delete) like
FSlint to ensure that all the files are being
copied intact. A Linux distribution like
Ubuntu or Fedora will be a better choice
for performing these set of operations
thanks to their inherent stability.

[E Dusting the desktop

How do I go about cleaning dirt from inside
my PC. Please suggest 120 mm chassis
fans for GX 900 Antec cabinet for silent
cooling, please specify the model numbers
of the fans.

-Neeraj KamaL

0 For dusting your computer, you can
use a blower or a hair dryer set to low
heat. Just make sure that your CPU fans
and all cooling fans are unplugged. Or
youcould grab a anti-static brush and
carefully dust it, with great care. □

ball

Your eyeball view.
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0651 -2341 022, Secunderabad - 92468 02281 .

Tips & Tricks

TRICKS

Wolfram Alpha 01

Scaling the El Capitan 03

Windows 10 Built in Mail App 05

Tips & Tricks has its own page numbers, and does not follow the rest
of the magazine’s page numbers. This is done to ensure that you can
cut out and save T&T in a separate folder for later reference.

WOLFRAM

ALPHA

Are you a Google Now person
or a Siri lover? It doesn’t really
matter because when it comes
to raw computational power
nothing really beats the Wolfram
Alpha computational engine. It
answers your query based on
data from multiple sources,
rather than providing you a link
to such sources as search engines
do. Even though the Android
and iOS apps come with a ^200/-
price tag and the mobile website
is fully functional, it is a lot more
convenient to use the app. The
menu handling and result dis-
play is optimised for a smaller
display on the apps.

Queried by Apple’s Siri,
Microsoft’s Bing, Samsung’s
S Voice and many others, the
Wolfram Alpha app can do a
multitude of things on the go
if queried correctly. Apart from
solving a host of mathematical
and engineering problems,
here are a few of its talents we
found useful:

Compare
almost
anything in the same
genre, but not
Coldplay and
Porcupine Tree
please!

Google vs Apple? Check. Titanic
vs Avatar? Check. USA vs UK?
You bet! All you need to do is
type it as A vs . B . You can also
use natural language queries
like ‘A or B' and 'is A better
than B' . For certain queries,
you can select how Wolfram
Alpha interprets your inputs by
tapping the yellow 'Assuming
A is referring to...'
message which takes you to a
list of possible interpretations,
with A here being either of
your inputs. This mechanism is
applicable to any type of query
on Wolfram Alpha. From com-
panies to countries, this engine
can compare anything for you
and provide the most in depth

Make sure you get the right one

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GhMOtf. ■

trtpLf vlaLar 11

DJUTUTi

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Qiy luf-Mlw ra* ml kkmity

i+ Lhr bJwfu.-c iruJujIriabH
and pLivtoh Bract Vtaybt.

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nif "k*r

V,:nL.Ti

H i rvi>-:-u r

Who said you need to wait for
the movie?

and analytic comparison data
possible with public informa-
tion. Try-it-yourself and enter
any random comparison, just
don’t expect it to decide PC vs.
Console for you!

Calculate
exercise data,
and exactly how long
it takes to burn off
that Sub

Forgot your fitness band or
smartphone at home when

Who knew it would take 30
minutes to shed that snicker!

you went for that run or gym?
Wolfram Alpha can help. In the
search box, enter the exercise
type, distance, time, your height,
weight, gender or any other
applicable details, for example:
23yr old 70kg male height
177cm running 2.5km in 5
minutes. Check the parameters
carefully as they vary between
exercises. For example it takes
distance and time for running,
but only time for push-ups.
It tells you everything about
your exercise like the energy
expenditure, oxygen consumed
and more.

Check nutrient
information of
almost any food in
any combination

This one is for all the health
enthusiasts and diet maniacs.
While you’re trying hard to tell
yourself why you shouldn’t eat
that McDonald’s cheeseburger,
try asking Wolfram Alpha.
Put the entire name of what
you are having (including dips
and side-dishes) as the input,
like "McDonald' s Cheese-
burger with fries and
coke", check the appropriate
assumptions and tap " = " . The
result will be a detailed break-
down of each and every compo-

Uxffwnl mind

LIvfrhriF rhtkMi. -jrevd. na jjnih wiIwhI

UMvtaf* fheim Kh^AdMa

UWwhdt CiW ■‘LhSJIM. IuKD’iJ AHM*

Uta-ChkJvtfi ijiikl. liHTiTWftd, IMmOfe MIHd

Uw-trtchtn q4Iil rumiq. AniNrihM

Use-tltsfem tmstlK Hft rawed mind

Use tyrt ddHKi pwnmd mind

Llw--rt*rfc#n Iwjh. 1. lit IV nw«|.riF

I have seen entire menu cards
with fewer options!

Digit I January 2016

Vol 16 I 01

I www.digit.in

Tips & Tricks

nent of your food and its nutri-
tional value. You can even use
it to compare two items off the
menu next time you’re having
difficulty deciding what to eat.

T Get the sky
chart of any
place at any time

For the casual stargazer and the
veteran astronomer, knowing
where to look is helpful to say
the least. Provide the input
as the place and the time, like
"Skychart Mumbai 10PM",
and let Wolfram generate a
map of the night sky, with all
the stars and constellations

C Q j? ** t lEHil! 1 ■■ “.':m

& Wdfram ‘ ' ili;i

ttxrirl

WiflUrf-

•nto,

l>, Lil •iatak-i

mid

h sfklu.rfh

Mfch

Alt

23*

rttopjhtfvdr

STCrf

msuv

litlbn

lufpn

toner

hcm

C.il cj'-viirs

rtii-ckri

xubfuiiL-r

lurcLvTtaJi

wfah

Lidll CBCl

its dm

■tognnrw* 1

ft* Jotofr

TV pill
pihtaEiurx

S CM

Calories! Calories everywhere!

that will be visible at that time
from that place based on astro-
nomical data. Zooming into the
map is not optimised, so don’t
expect to spot the USS Enter-
prise (NCC-1701) yet.

T Check the
weather in
space before you go
warp speed!

If all that stargazing makes you
long for a trip to outer space,
you can check the weather
before you head out. Just type
"space weather" and find
out bulk speed, proton density,
ion density and all other details
that you need to input into your
Millennium falcon before you
blast off.

T Check your
password
strength, and get
over “passwordl23”
please!

In this age of connectivity, we all
know the importance of a strong
password. If you are not so sure
about yours, type "Password
strength" followed by your
password into the input box and
let the engine analyse and report
the strength of your password
and a list of the criterion it uses

for the judgement. You even get
a score that you can use to com-

Is that a triangle I see?
Illuminati confirmed!

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Wolfram thinks your password
is quite ‘elementary’, Miss Adler

pare passwords. Just make sure
no one is peeking over when you
enter that password.

T Use Wolfram
Alpha as your
music box.

Wolfram Alpha can also gen-
erate the sound for any musical
note you may need to hear
during your next jam session.
For example "minor sixth
above d flat", "note c5",
"intervals C3 Eb3 Bb3 D4
G4 " are all valid queries and
will give you the corresponding
sound along with Standard fre-
quencies, pitch difference and
more musical information. You
can also generate any standard
waveform at any frequency.
Although it also offers piano
equivalents of other instru-
ments, all we could get out of it
was a sharp reminder of audible
frequency range.

T Analyse your
symptoms.
Research only!

Don’t use this if you are sick.
This is strictly research only
and the only positive outcome
of this could be to convince
you how much you really need
to go see a doctor. Enter your
symptom, like "sore throat"
into the search bar and Wolfram
Alpha will give you the per-
centage chances of every pos-
sible diagnosis, along with the
chances of being prescribed a
particular medicine and a host
of other information related
to your symptom. Most of the
statistics are US based but they
do reflect the data across a well
mixed population. Although
this is useful, remember, the
doctors studied all those years
for a reason!

Calculate Odds
l and Scores and
book that flight to
Vegas

Next time you are in a poker game
and don’t know what your next

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If only those guys in Oceans
11 had this

move should be, input "Poker"
along with the hand, like "poker
full house" to get the prob-
ability of your win. You can also
calculate lottery odds (Input:
"Lottery"), coin tosses (Input:
"5 coin tosses"), wagers
(Input: "4: 7 odds, bet 100
bucks") and give you scrabble
word scores (Input: "Scrabble
Score <Your Word here>").
Vegas, here we come!

Differentiate
between
colours

This feature is particularly
useful for many of us who are
colour-challenged. No more
guessing in the dark, the differ-
ence between 'violet' and
'mauve' is just a search away.
Use the comparison feature and
input ‘violet’ vs. ‘mauve’ or any
colour of your choice. You also
get the colour codes in multiple
representations like RGB, HSV,
CMYK etc

T Surprise
yourself

Apart from all the useful catego-
ries mentioned above, Wolfram
Alpha also excels in being a
lot of fun. If you are trying to
have a conversation, need for
handwritten results or just in

I www.digit.in

Vol 16 I 02

Digit I January 2016

Tips & Tricks

For free downloads you can permanently save the password
whereas for purchases you can disable them for 15 minutes

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Now you know where Siri gets
that tongue from!

the mood for a joke, Wolfram
Alpha has got you covered. You
can even try asking about the
"number of calories in a
light year of apple pie"
or the "probability of suc-
cessfully navigating an
asteroid field" and the
answers won’t disappoint you
the least. Have a look at their
examples page if you need
some starter ideas and feel free
to experiment with natural lan-
guage in your queries.

SCALING THE EL
CAPITAN

Apple officially the twelfth
major release of its desktop
operating system, OSX as
OSX El Capitan back in June.
Keeping up with Apple’s newer
California landmark nomen-
clature, this time it was a rock
formation in Yosemite Park.
The first public beta was avail-
able the very next day and
since then we have already
seen the OS climb peaks of its
own. A number of betas and
releases later, here are some
of the most interesting and
useful things you can do on
your Mac, which you might
just have missed looking for
all those major changes with
each release.

Locate your
cursor, wiggle
wiggle wiggle!

Perhaps one of the most useful
new additions in the OS, you
can locate that seemingly invis-
ible cursor by shaking your
mouse or wiggling your finger
on the trackpad rapidly and
watch the cursor grow bigger.
It is possible to disable this
cursor behaviour if you need
to. Goto System Preferences
> Accessibility > Display
and deselect Shake mouse
pointer to locate.

Rename your
files, copy file
path with right click

In a hat-tipping gesture to
Microsoft, Apple has made
one task a lot easier for OS X
newbies: renaming a file. While
it is always easier to just press
enter once a file is highlighted,
which is OS X’s standard way
of doing it, now you can right
click on the file and click on
'Rename' in the menu, just
like in Windows. Most sea-
soned OS X users won’t even
notice this one.

Another not so useful fea-
ture might be the file path
copying. Right click on a file
and hold down the Option/
Alt key to copy the full path
of the file. Might come in handy
in rare moments, like when
you have a moment’s notice to

send the location of those nuke
launch codes.

Save your App
I store

password, download
Temple Run even
faster!

Now you can save your pass-
word on the Mac App Store for
certain downloads or even the
entire store, saving yourself the
hassle of entering it each time
you download an app. Go to
System preferences->App
Store and find the Password
Settings section at the bottom.
From the drop downs avail-
able besides "Purchases" and
"Free downloads", choose the

required settings for prompting
for a password.

Airplay your
videos from
within Safari, without
sharing your entire _j

screen H

Airplay has always been a pop-
ular feature on Apple devices. On
previous versions of OS X, It let
you cast the screen of your Apple
device on to another device using
Apple TV. El Capitan took this
up a notch by putting the ability
to cast just videos from Safari
without reflecting your entire
screen. Open any website on
Safari which uses a supported
web video player (FYI, YouTube
does) and click on the Airplay
icon on the lower right corner
of the video (between Theatre |
mode and Full Screen) to t
select the target device. Now
you’re safe from accidentally
sharing that embarrassing tab
you’ve been browsing. Don’t
worry, we won’t judge you!

Permanently
delete files in
one shot

Previous versions of OS X have
quite irritatingly forced you to
empty your trash can every now
and then to actually delete files

Digit I January 2016

Vol 16 I 03

I www.digit.in

Tips & Tricks

Incinerating into oblivion indeed!

from your system. El Capitan
offers a quick and easy solution
to that. Select the file and press
Option+Cmd+Delete . You can
also do this from the menu bar
by opening the File menu and
pressing Option/Alt key.
Your unwanted trash is now
truly beyond reach.

Multiple mails
in full screen
- easier way to work
harder

A lot of us use the mail app
in full screen, sometimes just
to avoid the distractions the
internet has to offer. While you
are composing a mail, you may
need to take a picture or few
lines from another mail or some-
where else. This is how this fea-
ture works: in full-screen mode
click on C omp ose Mail, then
click on the screen outside the
new message. The message will
shrink down to the lower part of
the screen, letting you access the
rest of the screen.

Go to your inbox or another
folder in your mail to find that
photo and copy it. Then click
on the title bar of the new
email to pop it back into view
where you can paste the image
now. The image can be dragged
and dropped from another
email as well. Even better, with
the multiple tabs in email now
you can have more than one of
these drafts on screen at a time
- they share the same space
with part of the title bar
assigned to each.

Edit Photo
metadata in the
new Photos app

When viewing a photo in the
Photos app, you can get access
to edit the metadata of the photo.
Click the Info Button while the
photo is open which takes you to
a new window where you have
the sections Add a Descrip-
tion, Add a Keyword, Add
Faces, and even easily add
locations in the Assign a

Location section to the picture
based on Maps. All that tagging
finally made easy.

Return to
older Mission
Control, back to the
past

One of the most significant
changes in El Capitan has been
the return of the old Expose
behaviour to the mission con-
trol view. In Yosemite, opening
the mission control gives you
the documents of the same
app stacked over each other,
whereas in El Capitan this has
been changed to a separate
glimpse of each document. To
get the Yosemite view back, go to
System Preferences ->Mis-
sion Control and check the
box next to Group Windows by

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The location feature is
integrated with Maps

Application. There, now no
one can steal the good old days
from you.

Show or Hide
the Menu Bar

Just like the dock, now you can
set the Menu Bar to hide when

You can even change the way the Dashboard appears or whether it
appears at all

Both in the maximized and minimised state and both mails being composed appear as tabs

I www.digit.in

Vol 16 I 04

Digit I January 2016

Tips & Tricks

A host of other useful options are also available under General
Preferences

inactive. Open System Prefer-
ences->General and check the
box marked "Automatically
hide and show the menu
bar" . For people with limited
screen real estate, this is a very
useful feature.

WINDOWS 10
BUILT IN MAIL
APP

Microsoft has already had an
established mail client bundled
into Exchange Server or Micro-
soft Office since MS-DOS. Not
to be confused with Outlook
Express, Microsoft Outlook
has been an exhaustive email
solution with pretty much all
the capabilities you would
require from a personal sec-
retary (It can’t get you your
coffee though). It is for this very
reason, that many of us find it
daunting or somewhat over-
board for our needs.

If you are one of such
people, or simply don’t want to
get Microsoft Office, then the
Windows 10 Mail App is just
the thing for you. It is a much
lighter e-mail client yet offers
the same integration with your
email needs as Outlook. Once
you have an account set up, here

are some of the tips and tricks
for this app that might just
make your e-mail experience a
lot more interesting:

Save power and
bandwidth by
dynamically
downloading email

One of the woes of using modern
tablets or smartphones is the
battery consumed by back-
ground operations. The Mail
app has an interesting feature
that might help significantly
in this regard, considering one
of the services that constantly
keeps syncing itself over the net-
work is mail. Now you can let
Mail understand your usage pat-
tern and download new e-mails
accordingly. For example if you
open your mailbox around 7PM
every day, it will refresh your
inbox only around 6:30PM, not
multiple times all day. Right
click on the desired account
from the sidebar (or long touch
if you’re using a touch interface)
and go to Account Settings-
>Change mailbox sync set-
tings . Here, in the Download
new email drop down, select
based on my usage. Be
amazed at all the power saved.

Save Data,
once again

Follow the same path as the
previous tip, i.e. Right click
or long touch on the account-
account Settings->Change
mailbox sync settings. In
this window, un-checking the
box for Always download full
messages and Internet
images stops Mail from
fetching emails in their entirety
each time it syncs. Instead, you
can see small previews of your
messages when you navigate
your inbox.

Use your
cursor to
browse Mail - Caret
Browsing

This feature allows you to nav-
igate within e-mail messages

just like you would navigate in
a text document. In the Mail
app, click on the cog icon, go to
Settings->Reading . Inthe
Caret Browsing section, turn
Use the caret to navi-
gate the reading pane to
On. Now when you are viewing
a mail, touching its body will
make the cursor appear and
you can use the keyboard
arrow keys to browse the mes-
sage and even select and copy
text and images.

Use Swipe
gestures to
deal with email faster

Windows 10 itself has brought
in a host of touchpad and touch-
screen gestures. One of the best
implementations is in the email
app, which makes the experi-

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Caret browsing can be very useful if you’re on a desktop

Digit I January 2016

Vol 16 I 05

I www.digit.in

Tips & Tricks

if Desktop users have to hover their cursor over You still cannot create folders from within the

an e-mail to see the options available as a Mail App though

contextual menu

ence a lot more similar to using a
mail app on a smartphone. Once
the app is open, if you swipe left
over an email, a green Archive
tile shows up underneath, and
if you go all the way the mail is
archived. If you swipe right, a
Set Flag tile is revealed which
sets a flag on the highlighted
message when you go all the
way. It is possible to change
what these gestures do. Tap

the gear icon, go to Options
under Settings, and in the
Quick Actions section, turn
on Swipe actions first, then
from the two actions list under
Swipe right/hover and Swipe
left /hover choose the actions
that you want to assign to these
gestures. Someone using a
mouse has to make the cursor
hover as an alternative to the
touch gestures.

Manage your
folders in the
mail app

The Mail app, by default, shows
only the Inbox, Sent Items
and Drafts folders on the
sidebar. Any other folder that
you might have created in your
mail will appear under the More
option in the sidebar. To access
such a folder directly from the
sidebar, first tap or click the

More option to display the other
folders. Now right click (or long
touch) the folder you want to
access directly and select Add
to Favourites . Additionally,
if you select Pin to Start in
the same menu, it pins the folder
to the Start screen as a live tile.

Get those lost
e-mails back

The first time you set up an
existing email account in the
Mail app, the significantly lesser
number of e-mails showing up
might send you into a panic
attack. Do not worry; a default
sync setting is to blame. Right
click or long touch on your
Account in the sidebar on the
left and go to Account Set-
tings->Change mailbox
sync settings. Here, in the
list under Download email
from, select anytime . Go
back to your inbox to see
all your e-mails once the sync
is complete. Cl

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Workshop

Jedi Flakes!

Adding more flavour to your food with the
j-! JJ Kellogg’s Star Wars Cereals. Yes, its for real.

http://dgit.in/JediCereal

World War 3 and. ..Mars?

Elon Musk is worried that the third world
war might hamper Mars missions

http://dgit.in/WorldWarMars

Seamless content
integration with streaming

Ever wanted to automate
your content consumption
everywhere? We have a
solution for everyone!

Abhishek Balaji

readersletters@digit.in

O rganising your existing col-
lection of media or updating
can be a huge pain if you don’t
have the right tools to do it.
Your media collection can span gigabytes
or even terabytes stored on a hard disk,
but how do you make sure that content is
available with you wherever you are? This
guide will tell you just that. Organization
of content has become very important
now that there are tons of TV shows and
movies you can watch, and most of it can
be found on the internet, so you’ll need
to get everything connected. There are
several options for streaming content and
managing your downloaded content, most
of which are easy and will work out of the
box, but there are some which will need
some technical knowledge. For instance,
a simple situation would be if you have a
good Wi-Fi router capable of delivering
a large bandwidth and have videos and
pictures stored on a computer connected
to the same network. By using a streaming
stick such as the Chromecast or the Roku,
and setting up a media server on the com-
puter, you can easily pass content from the
computer to the TV wirelessly.

Plex - Your one stop shop

Plex is a two part software, one is a
server and the other is a client app. Plex
organizes your media collection-movies,
music and TV shows, and shares the
collection over your local network or
over the internet. This will enable any
of your laptops, tablets, mobile phones
and streaming devices to access the wide

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Plex on Android gives you a beautiful
interface on your phone

range of content in your hard disk. That’s
not all, Plex also pulls metadata for the
content. For example, if you have a movie,
Plex searches through various databases
to find information about the movie such
as the poster, the cast, crew and even
the synopsis and ratings. Plex claims to
be “One window into all your personal
media. No matter where you are” and it is
mostly true.

Plex also allows you to add streaming
channels and content from other sources
as well. Sadly, not all features of plex can
be used for free. If you ever decide to save
a few movies or TV shows offline on your
phone, you’ll have to get a subscription
called as the Plex Pass. The ^340 [$4.99]
a month subscription gives you more
control over your content. You can have
accounts for each of your family members

and control what each one sees. It also
allows you to stream your content outside
your network, backup your photos and
get early access to apps. If you want to use
your PlayStation of your Xbox to stream
your content on Plex, you’ll need a Plex
Pass subscription.

The advantage of using a media server
such as plex, is that it can transcode con-
tent. So if you are looking to watch your
content on a device which doesn’t particu-
larly support the format of the files, plex
will convert it to a format which you can
play. Although this requires a higher pow-
ered server, it is useful if you have your
content in a large number of formats. Plex
has client apps for the Amazon Fire TV,
Android TVs, the now obsolete Google TV,
Roku, Samsung Smart TVs, iOS, Windows
Phone 8 and Windows 8.1. Although some
of them are free to use, you’ll need to shell
out a small amount to be able to stream
your content on mobile devices.

How to set up the
Mother ship - All your data
resides here

A plex server is a dedicated machine
which stores all your media on its hard
disk, runs the plex server software to
organize the media and allows devices
on the network to pull the media from
it. Your server could be your own laptop
or an old PC lying around or a dedicated
NAS or a raspberry Pi setup. For the pur-
pose of this guide, we will assume that you
have a dedicated PC with windows run-
ning and all your media on the internal or
an external drive. This system needs to be
connected to your router.

Now, to install the plex server, head
over to http://dgit.in/plexmediaserver and
download the server side software. While
doing this, make sure that your media is
named and organized correctly so that
plex can recognize it. This is important
as, plex uses the existing metadata to

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Star Wars planets compared

Ever wondered how the planets on Star Wars
stack up to ours?

http://dgit.in/StarWarsPlanets

Suck the sun dry

A town rejected solar powered solutions
for they feared it would suck up the sun

http://dgit.in/SunSuckers

Workshop

find more information about your
media. If your metadata is incorrect
or missing, it will lead to incorrect
matching, causing you severe emo-
tional trauma and distress when
trying to stream content.

Adding Files

The setup of the server is pretty
easy, with a well guided installa-
tion. You can add your libraries
for Movies, TV shows and Music
and point these libraries at your
existing collection. Plex will scan
your collection for media it can
identify and organize it. Once you
setup a plex server, you are good to
go for basic streaming. You can con-
nect your chromecast and directly
cast from your server if needed. For
a more complete solution and auto-
matic downloading, read on.

Streaming them across

Sharing files over the network
was one of the most fundamental
purposes of a computer network
and the focus has now shifted to
streaming media and playback
on different devices rather than
sharing the files and expecting
each device to support the playback
of multiple file formats. Today,
devices such as the Roku, Google
Chromecast and various other
streaming devices allow you to
make your dumb TV, smart. These
devices usually connect through
the HDMI port on your TV and
connect to the local network
through Wi-Fi or Ethernet. You
can access all your shared media then, in
a beautiful interface on the TV and enjoy
streaming your media.

Get more content

There are several ways to get your content.
You can subscribe to the many streaming
services available or you can download
them off the internet. Although some of
the content on the internet can be pirated,
you will find several Movies and TV shows
which are available freely. Torrents and
usenets can be used to get these content
shared by people around the world.

Usenets work by distributing the data among several servers
with no single centralized server.

P2P networks work by using several clients which have the
data distributed among them

usenets and Torrents offer the same kind
of content, but are vastly different when it
comes to the method of getting that content.

Usenets

Usenets are a type of threaded discussion
boards, where users can post and reply to
messages. The one area where usenets are
different from regular forums, is that it’s
highly distributed. There is no centralized
server, and the data is passed among the
many servers continuously, owing to the
large amount of data that is being shuf-
fled around, the servers have a retention

period. This can range from an
hour to several months or years.
After the retention period passes,
the files and messages are deleted
off the servers. Usenets are a solid
alternatives to torrents, especially
because it’s much more secure
than a peer to peer network.

Torrents

Torrents provide a wide range of
free, copyright free content, but is
ridden with illegal rips of movies
and TV shows. So, you need to be
careful when downloading the free
content and make sure you are not
breaking any laws.

Peer to peer networks allow
users to create a network among
many clients. There is no fixed
server, and each node acts as a
server and a client when needed.
Peer to peer networks are decen-
tralized and are hardly regulated.
Its advisable to use a VPN when
downloading torrents as there is a
lot of malicious and illegal content,
which might land you in a legal
kerfuffle. Using VPN services
will severely affect the bandwidth
which you get when downloading,
but it is the price you pay for ano-
nymity and security.

Setting up a dedicated
Home Theatre

A HTPC or a Home Theatre
Portable Computer is dedicated
computer for media consumption.
It is usually connected directly
to a large monitor or a televi-
sion and has media on its internal drives
or can be driven by a NAS. HTPCs are
fairly common among enthusiasts who
repurpose old parts to create a new PC. If
you consume a lot of media and don’t like
connecting a lot of devices to your TV.

HTPCs are generally low powered
and single purpose. It will run a media
server, and can be directly connected to
the TV or you can use a streaming stick to
stream the content from the HTPC to you
TV, saving some clutter. Some HTPCs can
be really high powered, with a dedicated
graphics card, if you need to run 4K or

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Workshop

Serial is back!

After the much successful season 1, Serial is
back titled The case of the disappeared soldier'

http://dgit.in/SerialS02

Jeff Bezos bizarre offer

In an ugly spat between Jeff Bezos and Donald
Trump, Jeff Bezos offered to send Donald to
space. http://dgit.in/SendDTtoSpace

0 s

5 M C

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OSMC has one of the most beautiful interfaces among streaming boxes

3D content, and are particular about high
quality content and have a TV to match it.

Alternatives

SickBeard is an application written in
Python, which does the same thing
as Sonarr, albeit it has a less slick UI
than Sonarr.

SickRage is a fork of Sickbeard. It
brings a lot more functionality and a
better interface to your streaming nir-
vana endeavour.

There are a number of alternatives
for Plex, such as Kodi, OSMC, Ope-
nELEC and Emby, which are media
servers, and to some extent, organize
your media quite well.

CouchPotato

CouchPotato is a content manager for
movies. You can mark movies ‘wanted’ and
it will scan its various indexers for avail-
able files and begin downloading the files
for you. After the downloads, you can set it
to rename and move the files to the appro-
priate folders. It also suggest movies from
popular sources like IMDb and bluray.com,
so if you’re not sure what you’re looking
for, the suggestions will help you decide.
CouchPotato also gives you a nice exten-
sion for Safari, Chrome and Firefox, so if
you see a movie you fancy, you can use the
extension to mark it wanted. CouchPotato
is available as an installer for Windows and
OSX, but if you are running Linux or have
a habit of taking things apart, you need to
compile from source.

To get started with CouchPotato, head
over to http://dgit.in/CPotato to download
the installer for CouchPotato. Next, you
need to open the web interface at local-
host:5050/wizard, create a username and
password and leave the port as is.

You can set the directory to save the
torrent files. Adding some services from
which you want to pull torrent services
in the next step will make it easier for
CouchPotato to find your movies online.
Now, after you select the Movies you want,
CouchPotato will check the services and
download the torrent files to the folder.
Your torrent application can now be set to
check this folder for new .torrent files and
add them to download immediately. In
BitTorrent or uTorrent, you can do this by

going to Options>Preferences>Directories
and check the box for Automatically load
.torrents from. You can also set uTorrent
to move the downloaded files to another
folder. This is useful in the case of a rasp-
berry Pi or a HTPC with limited internal
storage. After you set this up, whenever
a movie which you wanted in CouchPo-
tato becomes available, it is automatically
downloaded and moved to the folder
you want.

Sonarr

Sonarr is a light application that works on
Windows, Mac and Linux, and manages
your collection of TV shows. Once Sonarr
is pointed to the directories where your
collection resides, it scans the folders
and tells you which episodes are missing
from your vast collection. You can also
set to monitor some of your TV shows,
and Sonarr will keep checking various
indexers, and download the necessary
files when it becomes available. Sonarr
is very flexible and allows you to select
which quality you want for each TV show,

Sonarr shows all your TV shows in a nice
interface , so you can mark the episodes
which you want

customize the indexers, download loca-
tions, and subtitles. You can download
Sonarr at http://dgit.in/SOnarr and use their
installer for easy installation and set up.

OpenELEC for Raspberry Pi

OpenELEC is a just enough operating
system for computers which are low pow-
ered and embedded systems. OpenELEC
runs on the raspberry PI and uses Kodi
as the media server. You will see the Kodi
interface at boot up and will not have to
configure any settings in the operating
system. You will just need to add the loca-
tion of your folders and set the metadata
scrapers and you’re good to go.

OSMC for the Raspberry Pi or
Apple TV

OSMC or Open Source Media Center is an
aftermarket firmware for the Raspberry Pi
and the Apple TV, which provides much
more features than the stock firmware.
OSMC adds a beautiful interface on top
to Kodi (formerly XBMC). OSMC can be
easily installed in all platforms by using
the installer or directly using the images
on the SD card in case of the Raspberry
Pi. OSMC is one of the best Operating
Systems to run on the Raspberry Pi, and
it is much better than the original Kodi
interface, which you get with OpenELEC
or manually installing Kodi on top of an
existing operating system. □

You can find detailed steps for all the above
apps at http://dgit.in/ContentStreaming

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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Cover story

BY ROBERT SOVEREIGN-SMITH

SHAKcLURiTHciWORLD,
IMAKE IBILLIONAIRES AND DISRURIjj
IlilFEfASlNEVER BEFORE^

DISRUPT-ED

DISRUPT THE FUTURE

48 Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

ILLUSTRATION:

very so often, when you Least expect it, the world
changes. Since hindsight is 20-20, when the dust settles,
and billionaires have become paupers, some paupers
have become billionaires, and when seemingly infallible
behemoths fall, we writers sit in judgement nodding our
heads Like wise sages, pretending we saw it coming all the way... We're
almost incredulous and disdainful of the CEOs of aforementioned infallible
behemoths, who “allowed" this to happen on their watch. We make wise-
cracks. We write seemingly enlightened columns and articles, exploring
what options they had, what those signs were, how they could have saved
themselves, but the fact is, most often, we ourselves only catch on to the
shifting tide at the end any way.

Playing soothsayer in technology is like sitting around playing Russian
roulette with a fuLly-Loaded Uzi, hoping the firing pin will jam. Long story
short, it rarely ever does, there’s always a huge mess, and careers die
often. Yet, the unexpected does happen. Just when you've gotten used to a
certain way of living, when it seems like nothing can ever change the way
things are... something, or someone, does.

Our cover story this month is an (over?) ambitious attempt to break
this chain of us always facepalming, going, “Of course! Why didn't we see
that coming?”. We want to try and Look at what will disrupt our Lives in the
future, and upset the applecart (no, that’s not our regular dig at Apple).

Only time will tell if we’re right or way off target, but we hope you’ll give
us props for trying. And remember to write in to us with suggestions of
your own, criticism or feedback.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

A LOOK AT SOME OFiTHE MOST NOTABLE
DISRUPTIONS THUS FAR <j

BY ROBERT SOVEREIGN-SMITH

he future usually lies in
understanding the past,
and we think it’s no dif-
ferent when talking about
tech disruption. Strictly
speaking, disruption is really just a huge
leap forward in a short amount of time,
usually because of a new invention that
makes something that was really difficult
to do a heck-of-a-lot easier.

The term “disruptive technology” was
first used by Clayton M. Christensen in his
1995 paper Disruptive Technologies: Catching
the Wave, and was later made popular by
his best-seller 1997 book The Innovator’s
Dilemma. According to him, a disruptive
technology (or innovation) was one that
would disrupt an existing market, and
displace (if not ruin) an existing market
leader. Also, since disruptive innovations
are rarely ever profitable, and are usually
high risk, it stands to reason why they
usually come from outside the established
industry players.

Now, strictly- speaking, everything
from the discovery of fire to the inven-
tion of the wheel and then domesticating
animals as load-pullers were disruptions
in the evolution of the human race, but
we’re sticking to the modern age here, or
basically the past 100 years or so, with
emphasis on the last 30.

The first thing we need to under-
stand is that disruptions are not always
surprises that jump out of the shadows
to strangle an existing market leader.

Most often, they’re known technologies

or inventions that have been deemed to
be too niche, or too expensive, or just too
weird and unwanted by the general popu-
lation. The automobile is a prime example.
The first steam-powered automobile was
built in 1672 as a toy for the Emperor
of China, but in the traditional under-
standing, many different road -worthy
models of steam-powered vehicles started
showing up between 1770 and 1800 in
France and England. Even electric cars
are not as recent as most would believe.
Although many prototypes may have
preceded it across the world, the Flocken
Elektrowagen made by German inventor
Andreas Flocken in 1888 is widely recog-
nised as the first real electric car.

To say that horse and carriage manu-
facturers across the globe didn’t have any
inkling about the developments in auto-
mobiles would be a lie. In fact, automo-
biles were seen as toys for the wealthy (or
the insane), and most people were scared
of them because of the sheer amount of
noise they made. One can easily imagine
a meeting of the owners of horse and car-
riage companies, sipping their expensive
drinks, sitting in their exclusive clubs
making jokes about early automobile
companies. However, history clearly tells
us who had the last laugh...

In the same industry, today, electric
cars are being opposed by everyone who
makes a living from petrol and diesel
vehicles. Petrol pump owners specifically
don’t want to accept the fact that electric
cars are perhaps the disruption of their

industry. Performance and reliability of
electric vehicles are increasing constantly,
and when the tipping point comes, who’s
going to need a petrol pump? Petrol pump
owners could embrace electric, and have
quick car charging stations that would
allow electric cars to also use petrol
pumps. This might kill the need for inno-
vations in electric cars for the charging
and battery aspect, and allow pumps to
survive. They won’t, because there’s no
profit in it right now, which will force com-
panies like Tesla to innovate with batteries
and making it easy to charge from any
A/C power outlet, and when the switch to
electric starts to take off, the petrol pump
owners are done for... and it will be too late
for them to get with the times by then.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

It was in the ‘80s that the idea of a per-
sonal computer took off. Before that, com-
puters were huge mainframes that took up
a room and did complex calculations that
only a few people in the world could input.
The IBM PC (amongst many others) made
computers affordable for wealthier Ameri-
cans. Then the price war started, and PCs
kept becoming cheaper and cheaper, and
soon almost every middle-class house
across the developed world had one. Thus
started the digital revolution. However, it
wasn’t until the Internet came along that
the real digital disruption started...

What the PC did was take “computing”
out of the hands of the “experts” and put
it into the hands of everyone else. Now

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Cover story

anyone with a passion to learn could start
coding and experimenting, and that’s
really where almost all the technology
innovation of the past 25 years stems from.

What the PC also did was topple a few
big names in the technology world. IBM,
despite being the ones who started the
disruption themselves, almost got wiped
out. In order to quickly come to market
and crush the new upstart of a company
(Apple), IBM threw together it’s IBM
PC based on mostly existing electronics,
which were more importantly, unpatent-
able. Although it did succeed in ensuring
that Apple never really took the world
by storm with its MAC hardware and
software, IBM opened the floodgates to
PC clones, and the price war that fol-
lowed. The consumer won in the end, but
some companies such as IBM and Apple
were left with ruined business models.

It wouldn’t be until more than a decade
later that Apple would finally recover,
and some would say IBM never really did
(certainly not in the consumer space).

THE WEB IS CAST

The “internet” is something that happened
in the lifetime of most of you reading this
article. However, the idea of connecting
people across distances to enable them to
communicate probably goes even further
back than carrier pigeons! Instantaneous
communication probably dates back to the
telegram days, and so on.

The first big development to take place
was the idea of networking computers
across large geographical areas. Then
what followed was finding out that not all
computers were able to understand one
another, because they didn’t speak the
same language. This is when Vinton Cerf
was recruited by DARPA to come up with
a networking protocol that all computers
could use to communicate with. It was

1973. Cerf had already developed the NCP
(Network Control Program) protocol that
DARPA’s computers used to communi-
cate with one another - that network was
called the ARPANet. This is how TCP/IP
was conceived. Finally, new year’s day, in
1983, the whole ARPANet was rebooted
to switch from NCP to TCP/IP. After a
public briefing about TCP/IP by DARPA,
the commercial world took to TCP/IP en
masse, and the this is how just anyone
could connect to the Internet.

However, the real power of the internet
was finally released by another disrup-
tion. The World Wide Web, as designed by
Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, is what sparked
the idea of using a web server, and a
browser to access the said server. It also
brought URIs (Unique Resource Identi-
fiers) which made it easier to find things.

In 1991, at CERN, the first website went
live. The first webpage was: http://info.cern.
ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.

Berners-Lee also coded the first browser,
to be able to access the first web page.

Then Marc Andreessen developed Mosaic
(which was to later become Netscape
Navigator) in 1993, which was the first
browser capable of displaying images
alongside text, which meant even non-
computer- savvy people could look at a
web page and understand it... and then the
internet went BOOM!

MR. KNOW IT ALL!

What happens when the web starts
reaching everyone? Information starts
getting shared, and soon enough you need
to find a way to find the right informa-
tion. That’s when search engines are born,
and many were born before Google came
along. Search engines would display
links for a search keyword based on how
many times the keyword appeared in the
specified web page. They then ranked the
pages, and displayed them accordingly. Of
course there was more complex math than
just that happening, but it’s a simplified
explanation we’re after. When Sergey Brin
and Larry Page were studying together in
Stanford, they started talking about how
they could do better than what existing
search engines were doing. Instead of
basing things just on keywords, they
could add complexity and also check how
many sites linked to the page in question,
and how reliable those sites were. Today,
we know that to be their PageRank algo-
rithm, and millions have tried to get the
better of it, to game the system, and very
few succeed for very little time.

Brin and Page incorporated Google in
1998, almost sold it in 1999 for under $1
million (because they felt it was inter-
fering with their studies), and then later
the same year they got investors to pump
in $25 million. They took over the internet,
and then went public in 2004. Today

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Cover story

Google (or is it Alphabet?) is one of the
most valuable companies in the world.

Finding stuff is one way to find your
information, another is to read through
an Encyclopedia. Before the internet came
along, we needed to go to libraries to do
research, and the rich kids would scoff at
you for having to do so, because their par-
ents had bought them the entire Encyclo-
paedia Britannica collection. Quiz junkies
and your neighbourhood wise-asses would
read up facts and look for moments to show
off their big brains. Those of us (above 30)
with limited access to libraries or ency-
clopaedias would either listen in awe, or
secretly plan to strangle aforementioned
wise-asses when no one was looking.

Disruptions don’t always come in the
form of yet another capitalist company
looking to get rich... sometimes they come
in the form of not-for-profit do-gooders.
Wikipedia is the obvious example we’re
giving here, and it came along with a mis-
sion to make information easily available
to everyone with access to the internet.
Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger wanted
the world to be able to share knowledge
with one another by making their online
encyclopedia a Wiki, so that everyone
could contribute. Ward Cunningham
invented the WikiWikiWeb (the very first
Wiki) in 1994. Wiki is a Hawaiian word
that means “quick”.

Wikipedia went on to become one of
the largest sites in the world, and certainly
the most referenced, and if you have used
it to learn something new in the past few
years, we suggest you donate something
to them, so that they can keep it alive. It
is, after all, still a nonprofit looking to do
some good.

Not everyone loves Wikipedia, though,
and many criticise it for having too many
flaws, and too many errors and biases
creeping into the content on the site
because of the fact that anyone can edit the
open format. Many articles do not point
to reliable sources, and editors don’t have
the time to fix everything. Internet trolls
are also known to keep causing trouble by
adding in false information to quite a few
pages. You certainly shouldn’t depend on
Wikipedia to research your college thesis,
or anything like that. It’s really good for
pop-culture and simple explanations of
scientific terms, though you should still
visit the citations and sources mentioned
for a proper understanding yourself. At

the very least, Wikipedia is the easiest to
find collection of links to references, fur-
ther reading and citations on any topic.

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

Yes, yes, we mean Apple. We’re not the
biggest Apple fans here at Digit, but we
have to grudgingly admit that the com-
pany did cause some of the biggest disrup-
tions over the past decade.

At a time when the world was still
trying to figure out how to deal with
music piracy and MP3, and just after Nap-
ster had been shut down, Steve Jobs intro-
duced the Apple iPod to the world on 23
October, 2001. Most of the world yawned
- another digital music player, and locked
to the Mac platform that almost no one
owns, how wonderful (that’s sarcasm).

Now 2001 was the height of the PC-
software development boom, so obviously
there were PC workarounds available that
let people connect their iPods to PCs to
transfer music, but still, it was no big deal.

Apple had also launched iTunes, which
was trying to get people to pay for music.
Too soon, Apple, way too soon. Napster
wasn’t even properly buried, the MCAA
was suing grandmas, and here was Apple
asking you to pay, for MP3s!

Obviously, most competing MP3 player
companies would have been sniggering,
making fun of Steve Jobs and his iPod.
What they failed to notice was that the
iPod had brought something new to the
table. An improved interface and a way
of scrolling through hundreds of songs
easily - something you really have to be
good at when you offer to let users store
over 2000 songs.

Then suddenly, towards the end of
2003, we start hearing about the numbers
of iPods sold are now calculated in mil-
lions. By 2004 it’s 2 million, then 3 mil-
lion, and the world seems to be going iPod
crazy. The touch-wheel scroller seems to
be a huge success, and people are lapping
it up. Apple also officially embraces PC
users (something that we assume was a
very tough compromise for Steve Jobs to
accept). iTunes reports that it’s “sold” 13
million songs, and the world has officially
begun to get over its music-piracy fetish.
Before you know it, the term “iPod” is
used as common terminology for all port-
able media players or MP3 players, just as
the brand Xerox is often used to speak of
the act of photocopying.

Apple didn’t stop there, however.

In the late ‘90s and early 2000s,
smartphones were meant for business
users only, and BlackBerry (then RIM)
was the undisputed king of the smart-
phone game. Players such as Sony-
Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola made up
the bulk of the sales, but the pinnacle of
performance phones was reserved for
BlackBerry (and for a short time, Palm).

With Apple already famous for the
iPod, and many rumours suggesting that
an Apple phone was coming soon, there
was a buzz amongst consumers, who now
saw Apple as ‘cool’ once again. On 29 June,
2007, Apple closed all its stores in the
afternoon, preparing for the 6 PM launch
of the iPhone. People started lining up
outside the stores, and of course, media
had to show up to see what the fuss was
about. Although tied solely to AT&T, the
iPhone still sold like hotcakes, with many
ditching their providers for AT&T just to
get the shiny new iPhone.

Apple’s iPod shuffle was one of the best selling models

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Cover story

Was the first iPhone any good? Not at
all. It was almost a prototype that lacked
even basic functions, and this caused
other phone manufacturers to disregard it
as a threat. What they didn’t pay attention
to was the touch interface that it offered.
Almost every existing BlackBerry user
laughed at the idea of giving up their
hardware keyboard (many still stay with
BlackBerry for that very reason), and
other manufacturers saw the expensive
iPhone as a niche market that would never
affect their numbers.

To be fair to BlackBerry, you cannot
really blame the company management
too much for underestimating Apple.

The initial teething problems with the
iPhone aside, since Apple was “cool”, and
was advocating the smartness of their
phones, it made sense for the world to
start reading up about smartphones. At
that time if you googled for “smartphone”
you’d probably run into a BlackBerry
link. So what did people do? Especially
those who didn’t want to jump to AT&T,
or didn’t live in the US, and didn’t want
to jailbreak one of the illegally imported
locked iPhones? Why, buy a BlackBerry
of course. We assume this is when
ownership-bias crept in, and everyone
bashed Apple’s iPhone for being a joke of
a smartphone.

Then the iPhone improved. Soon
it wasn’t a joke anymore. It had apps
being developed for it, by the thousands!

It became available all over the world
across carriers and even unlocked. It had
incredible resale value. Apple invested a
lot in marketing the iPhone and pro-
viding service to customers. There was
no complicated choosing of models to be
done here. You wanted an iPhone? How
many GB? Done. Every iPhone offered the
same functionality, apps ran well, worked
on any network. None of that BlackBerry

special data plan rubbish... well, you know
how it is today.

DISRUPTIONS GALORE

The history of computing itself seems to
be filled with disruptions. We’ve high-
lighted some of the most memorable
ones thus far, but by no means is that an
exhaustive list.

LCDs disrupted the CRT market.

They started as low power, low perfor-
mance things used in calculators, and
now they’re everywhere. It was slow in
the beginning, but once LCDs started

BlackBerry was one of the first
‘smartphones’

improving and gained accurate colour
reproduction, that was it for CRTs.

The CD killed the floppy and zip drive
market, and flash storage did the same
to the CD in return. Cloud storage and
increased bandwidth is now killing both
of them...

Digital cameras were pathetic com-
pared to film when they first came out.
They were low-resolution, power hungry
monsters that output terribly pixelated
and often blurry images, because the sen-

sors were too slow, and a shaking hand
would ruin most pictures. Then, sensors
improved, resolutions went up, colour
reproduction was better, and suddenly
digital took off. No photography profes-
sional would be caught dead using a
digital camera, because it implied that you
weren’t sure of your shot. It was meant
for amateurs, who needed to click 300
pictures before getting one good one. It
was for people who needed image editing
in software before they could share a
picture. Professionals would never stoop
to that level... and then they did. Because
as good as you are, you get better when
you can immediately see what you’ve shot,
and figure out ways of shooting it better
and improving lighting, angles, etc. Today
film is niche.

Another thing that’s being disrupted
is print media. Yes, we’re all being slowly
killed by digital. Some of us are fortunate
to have a loyal reader-base like you, but
most are not. Of course, being a technology
magazine we’ve already got a website and
there’s an app coming soon (whoops! Don’t
tell anyone, it’s still a secret...), but the fact
is, print is officially niche. It’s an indul-
gence for those who are fortunate enough
and classy enough to still want to read
something on paper. Like the people who
still read books, magazine readers will
never totally go away, but it’s certainly not
the most popular platform anymore, and it
was, just a decade or so ago!

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, What-
sApp and a tonne of other things can also
be considered disruptions in their own
right, but we’d need a 100 pages to talk
about them all... enough of the history
lesson, however, this was just to whet your
appetite and get you to put your thinking
cap on, to see if you can spot the disrup-
tions that are coming soon... We’ve got a list
of 10 that we’re fairly confident about... E3

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s we said at the beginning of
this cover story, predicting the
future is a slippery slope. We
■ M \ could have played it safe and
\J gone with the standard story
o^what you can expect to see in 2016 ,
but we’d probably fall asleep writing it,
and you’d definitely fall asleep reading
it. Instead, we’ve tried to look more long
term. Some of the stuff we talk about here
might only be achieved decades from now,
whilst some others could happen in the
next three to five years.

Some have already happened, or
rather, have already happened elsewhere
in the world and are still happening in
India. To paraphrase a popular Facebook
and WhatsApp forwarded message:

Think about the world’s largest taxi com-
pany - Uber; it owns no taxis. You find
accommodation on Airbnb, even though
it owns no real estate. The biggest retailer,
Alibaba, has no inventory of its own. The
biggest media owners are Facebook and
YouTube, and neither creates any of that
media. Netflix is the world’s biggest movie
house, and it owns no cinemas... and the
two companies making the most money
from selling software - Apple and Google
- don’t actually write the apps that earn
them all that money!

What’s important to understand,
before we start with our own list, is that
disruptions are not necessarily as simple

as they were before. The goal for the
disruptor has traditionally been to carve
a niche for themselves, and to do some
new feature, or serve some new need well.
Then, when everyone else realises that
they really need that too, it starts doing
everything else better.

Take the digital camera as an example:
at first they were poor quality, they were
low-res, they ate up batteries and they
were terrible for anyone even remotely
serious about photography. They did,
however, cut out the need for film devel-
oping, and allowed people to click an
unlimited amount of pictures, and to see
what they’d clicked almost immediately.
Eventually as storage prices fell, sensors
got better, and the world moved to digital
data storage, it became a no-brainer to buy
a digital camera. This is a linear path the
disruptor took. At least the target audi-
ence was the same, and both devices were
still cameras. Kodak could have invested
heavily in digital camera technologies
early on to save itself. At least in theory.

Sometimes, however, the invading
disruptor comes from such unexpected
sources that there’s nothing that could
have been done. Take the example of GPS
companies such as Garmin and TomTom
and the likes. Their business model
seemed sound. They targeted vehicles,
and obviously everyone wanted directions
in their vehicle. They would subsidise

the hardware cost by charging for map
updates, and software updates.

However, when smartphones started
getting GPS sensors just as good as
the ones in these devices, it was but an
obvious step for Google to put Google
Maps on to the phones. Google started a
navigation service, which spoke out direc-
tions just as your GPS did. The real dis-
ruption was caused by the maps always
being up to date as they were stored on
Google’s servers. Plus, the service was
free - all you paid was for data, which you
were doing anyway.

Google claims it was not targeting
GPS companies at all, and only wanted to
offer the best experience for phone users.
We believe them, because it’s one of the
most important aspects of a smartphone
these days.

If you think of the GPS companies as
stallions running a race, Google came
along and accidentally dug a huge trench
in their path. Perhaps Google is being
honest when they say they didn’t mean for
all the stallions to fall into the trench and
break their legs. However, what Google
did next was akin to pulling out the
shotgun and putting the injured stallions
out of their misery - Google allowed users
to download map packs onto their phones,
so that even data connectivity wasn’t
needed when outside. RIP GPS guys, you
will be forgotten, sadly.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Cover story

Disrupter :
Disrupted:
What Year:

Sensors (Automated Systems,
Everything

2020 to 2025

Self Driving Cars,

IoT)

hen it comes to disruptors, we’re
starting off with the one we think
will kill many businesses, and
create a whole new way of living. Sen-
sors, those little tiny things that are being
printed out now, they’re that small, are
going to make the world so different, that
if you went to sleep today and woke up in
2030, you’d think you slept for a century
because of how different life will be.

There are many fields of science and
technology that sensors will disrupt, most
notably, the auto industry, agriculture,
manufacturing, and medicine. All of this
will be enabled by what everyone calls
the IoT (Internet of Things, though we
sometimes call it the IoE - Internet of
Everything - but more on that later).
Sensors are going to go everywhere.

Into the food we grow, the things we
build, and yes, even us. Let’s look at the
three biggest disruptions we believe
sensors will cause.

THE AUTO INDUSTRY

This one’s expected. It’s been too long
since the last real shake up of the
industry. With the oil industry already
under threat from electric cars, the auto
industry itself is under threat, and from
Google, of all companies. Let us try to
illustrate how.

Google is currently working on
driverless cars. Many others are, but
Google is way ahead of everyone else
in this particular field. Sensors are the
mainstay of getting a car to go driverless.
Since a computer can only sense through
sensors, Google’s using all the sensors it
can to get the computer to drive safely, yet
not too slowly.

The Mars Rovers, for instance, are an
example of driverless vehicles, because
they had to be. They would be on an
alien world, too far away to be driven
remotely, no spares or people to change
your tyres or do repairs... That’s why they
crawl around Mars at excruciatingly slow
speeds, more careful of every inch they
move than the most paranoid human that

ever lived. That’s OK for NASA though,
they’re not trying to get from point A to
point B on Mars, and aren’t late for any
appointments with the Martians.

Although you’d think Google’s job
would be far easier, given that its cars drive
on nice smooth roads and get regularly
serviced, the fact is what they’ve done is
way more impressive, because they already
have cars driving about in almost everyday
traffic, amidst human drivers who don’t
always follow the rules, and doing so at
speeds of a normal commute.

When the technology is perfected,
driverless cars will have to drive alongside
humans for many more years to come, and
they will need to do so safely.

A prototype of a self driving car by Google

Now assume that day has arrived, and
you now own a spanking new driverless
car. After all the initial excitement has
died down, and they’re as common on a
road as regular taxis, you’re going to be
bored, and get back to doing what you do
best, which is fiddle with your phone or
computing device, and get back to work
or play. How do you normally use your
car? Apart from the very, very occasional
pleasure drive, living in a city probably
means you use vehicles to get you from
point A to B. If that vehicle is your private
car, it’s going to be parked somewhere,
while you do whatever it is you went to

point B to do - usually work, or school,
or whatever. Then when you’re done, you
either hop into your car and drive back to
point A (home), or at best go to point C to
buy some stuff, and sometimes point D
to catch up with friends, before heading
home to point A again.

Seems like you’d still need a car, even
after you no longer need to drive it, right?
Perhaps. Now consider your parents,
or family at home. They also need to
commute. They might have a second car,
if you can afford it. With a driverless
car, it could drop you to point B, go back
to point A and take the family around
as well. It would certainly reduce the
amount of cars on the road. Maybe not all,
but certainly some homes would make
do with just one car.

Now consider that taxi companies
could drop prices drastically, because
their biggest cost at the moment is the
human drivers. If all they were paying
for was fuel and maintenance, they
would slash prices to get you to use
their cars. They would also be able to
afford more cars, which would make
them cover more and more areas easily
and make availability a breeze. You
might choose, like many will, to use
only the cheap taxi service. Heck, you
might choose to use a cheaper and
newer sharing taxi service, which can
now accommodate four people in a car
(two in the back two in front as there’s
no driver) with great comfort and luxury
seats. All that comfort by just compro-
mising on a few minutes as the taxi takes
a few short detours to pick up people
headed in approximately the same direc-
tion as you.

It’s not unthinkable to imagine that
many people would choose to do without
the headache of owning and maintaining
their own cars, when day or night they
can get a car to take them where they want
to go on demand. What this translates to
is a huge reduction of the total amount of
cars. We don’t foresee a great reduction of
the amount of cars on the road. What will

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Cover story

really be cut out is all the millions of cars
that are parked inside offices and homes
and at the sides of the roads, not the eve-
ryday on-road traffic.

What will happen, however, is that far
fewer cars will be sold. Which means that
many companies will go belly up, and a
company like Google could cause such a
shake up of the automobile industry, that
we may only be left with a few players in
the utility segment. Lamborghini and the
types will surely still have the same small
niche they have now, it’s the Suzukis,
Mazdas, Nissans and Fords of the world
that really have to be scared of this future.

APPLE KEEPS THE DOCTOR
AWAY

Not “an” apple, we mean the Apple - the
company. OK, we’re just being cute to
get a good headline, but the fact is, we’re
already hearing a lot of talk about how
Apple’s Watch, and similar devices from
others, can revolutionise medicine. What’s
really new is that you will be wearing sen-
sors, and those sensors will output read-
ings, that will now be shared in real-time
with whoever you choose. Let’s be honest,
we’re all a little worried about our health,

so you’re not going to be averse to letting
your doctor or your hospital get readings
of your vital signs. If you have a pre-
existing condition, you’re actually going
to be eager to share the data. Prevention is
better than cure... we all know this.

We will cover wearables later as well,
but in terms of sensors, we’re thinking
not just wearable, but eatable, drinkable,
excretable sensors. Heck, the sensors
might well be planted with the fruit and
vegetables that you will later cook and eat.
If science has its way, this is exactly the
future we will find ourselves in.

Now if you’re covered in sensors from
head-to-toe, and inside-out, all that data
is going to keep you healthy. There’s a big
difference between a doctor telling you,
“Why don’t you exercise, it’s good for
you”, and sensors inside you reporting to
your smartwatch that absorbed way too
much fat today, and it’s already collecting
and settling in your arteries. Nothing like
a message that reads “Warning: Please
exercise for 15 minutes, dangerous levels
of plaque found headed to your heart!” to
get you motivated.

Who’s going to lose their jobs? Dieti-
cians, fitness instructors, gyms, and even

Disrupter: Wearables with new interfaces
Disrupted: All screens, all stores
What Year: 2025 to 2030

es, this category is certainly
also enabled by sensors, but the
reason we’re listing this sepa-
rately is because we feel this will usher in
a new way for us to interface with tech-
nology. We really believe that the touch
screen’s days are numbered. Or all screens
for that matter...

What happens when you start car-
rying your tech around with you is pretty
much what the smartphone did to the PC.
Turned out that most people didn’t need
the versatility of the PC to begin with.

Not everyone is coding, or doing com-
plex graphical work, or working on large
spreadsheets that require wide-screens
and keyboards. Even before the need for a
full QWERTY keyboard died, the need for
a mouse did, thanks to touch.

You don’t even need a keyboard
anymore? The little software keypad that
pops up on your touchscreen is perfectly
fine for most, and if you’re using Swype
or something similar, you know that the
need to tap on specific keys to type is also
dying out.

What’s next?

How about not even needing a screen
anymore?

As surreal as that sounds, there is
tonnes of research going into new inter-
faces. Virtual reality is going to revolu-
tionise the way we get entertainment,
for sure, and it’s coming sooner than you
think. However, apart from gaming and
movies and general entertainment value,
we struggle to find much more use for it.
Yes there will be innovative marketing

the local General Practitioner. Healthier
people equals less sickness, and less
need for a general doctor. Maybe that
headline should have read Apple killed
the doctor’!

SUPER SENSITIVE

That’s not all that’s going to be disrupted
by sensors, though. Many jobs are going
to be made redundant in manufacturing
and agriculture because sensors will be
more accurate than any human ever can.
Want to know when to water the crops?
Sensors will do it automatically, in fact
they can make sure that every plant gets
the right amount of water, let alone think
in patches of farmland...

Robots already do a lot of the manufac-
turing for us, and that number will only
go up when the same robots start getting
more capabilities thanks to advanced
sensing techniques. Being able to network
sensors will just mean better skill and
more dexterity for a robot. This will even-
tually result in a robot hand that’s able
to handle an egg far more delicately than
a human hand, for example. Or a paint
brush. Or when picking fruit... but more
on robots later.

done using VR. Perhaps someday you will
“experience” Digit instead of reading it,
but let’s be honest, good old computing is
still going to need us to look at something.
That’s where we think someone is going to
come along and disrupt augmented reality
(AR), with an offering that will just make
every single screen obsolete. Whether it’s
your computer monitor, your cellphone,
or even that spanking new Apple Watch,
it could all be rendered pointless with a
smart contact lens, or with some huge
improvements to glasses.

With companies like Magic Leap and
even Microsoft with its Hololens working
on some really cool glasses to make
almost anything a screen and giving you
the ability to interact with your hands,
it looks like the future of traditional

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Cover story

screens is bleak. It will also be an inter-
esting change to society if everyone starts
wearing glasses. Not just that, can you
imagine how your parents are going to
react to all the crazy people running about
pretending to shoot at nothing while they
game using such glasses?

However, the biggest disruption
might be to the retail segment. Just
as Amazon and Alibaba have done
with books, electronics and the likes,
proper AR or even VR can make
the need for all retail stores to just
go away. Want to go shopping? Put
on your AR/VR glasses, open your
favourite shopping app, and your
surroundings are instantly trans-
formed into a department store. Want
to check out Electronics while your
significant other marvels at clothes?

No need to actually go anywhere,
both of you can walk, hand-in-hand,
down a building corridor and be
shopping for very different things in the
exact same physical space! Click to buy
something, and it will be delivered to you
in under an hour. How can that be? When
companies don’t need to invest in real
estate, and some big shopping app does
all the hard work making interfaces that
you use to buy, all they’re left to do is work
on speeding up deliveries all around the
country (world?), because that’s the only
way they can try and outdo their com-
petitors... Amazon already offers 1-hour
delivery in some cities, if AR and VR ever

disrupt the retail segment, we’re all going
to enjoy that luxury.

Google’s Project Tango aims to use a
smartphone camera to be able to map a
room of enclosed space in 3D. This means
giving the camera the ability to perceive
depth as well. Unlike the 2D images we
click with the camera - yes we know it

Microsoft’s HoLo Lens is very promising

appears 3D, but that’s only because your
brain sees it that way and interprets a 2D
image like a 3D one - Project Tango aims
to create a proper 3D map (sort of like a
game engine maps things, by adding the Z
axis coordinates for what’s in front, what’s
behind, etc). If this takes off, any smart-
phone will be able to map an environment,
and allow you to improve the virtual
reality or augmented reality experience in
that space.

Even if screens don’t go the way of the
Dodo, we certainly think touch is done

for. Ever since the Wii and Kinect, we’ve
seen that gesture computing is really an
interesting thing. However, the move-
ments have to be exaggerated, are too
simple, or have low accuracy. Plus, you
need to be in front of a sensor - a camera
in the case of the Kinect, and that weird
white thing for the Wii. But suppose you
could track microscopic movements
of your fingers over your phone?
Google’s Project Soli aims at using
radar to track minute movements
of your fingers and then translates
that into an action. Just place your
hand somewhere near your phone
and make a motion of twisting a
dial, and the volume of whatever’s
playing increases or decreases.

Another distant, yet very real
technology is the Brain Computer
Interface (something we ourselves
have been mentioning for over
a decade). Basically, if you could
think it and a machine could understand
your thought, you would suddenly need
no interface to do a lot of your tasks that
you currently need a screen for. However,
how would you watch a movie? This is
where the crazy idea of two way flow of
information over the interface comes in.
Now imagine your computer sending data
directly to your brain! That would be the
end of every interface that ever existed...
but it’s not going to happen anytime
soon, so we’re dropping that for now and
moving on to the next disruption.

Disrupter :
Disrupted:
What Year:

Internet of Everything,

Medicine

2025 to 2030

big data,

sensors

his will be one huge disruption
that we’re all going to want. Why?
Because it’s going to improve the
quality of your life, if not the length of it as
well. Right now, we’re already at the stage
where people share their findings in the
medical field online for anyone to read.

Yes there are some paid journals, and
there are many delays because compa-
nies want to patent what they can before
allowing researchers that they fund to
publish anything... academics and scien-

tists often have to deal with a lot of legal
red tape these days.

If there’s one thing that can change
everything, it’s the Internet of Everything.
We’ve spoken about sensors earlier, and
how they will help medicine, however,
it’s your body, and you will get to do with
it as you please, and if there are sensors
collecting data about you, and you’ve not
signed away your freedom, you will be
able to choose what to do with that data.
So if you’ve got some rare cancer, and are

making a full recovery, you may want
to publish your personal data online and
let doctors from around the world draw
their own conclusions for their research.
This could revolutionise research in med-
icine, as the amount of funding needed
for research would decrease, and open
up the field to more actual science being
done - race to save the patient, instead of
secure the patent.

Apart from enriching research with
more data, the sheer amount of data will

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Cover story

also help. Finding patterns becomes
easier when data sets grow bigger. Sure
it takes more time to parse a larger
database, but it also makes the accu-
racy of predictions better. This would
help get to cures for what’s currently
incurable, and improve healing times
because we will have more data to sup-
port what really is the best method, to
say, heal a broken collarbone (in the long
run). There will also be the advantage

of having data from all over the world
shared, so perhaps all that data will
help us identify specific genes that put
us at more risk for some diseases, or
even make us more accepting of certain
medicines to get cured...

Humongous data for medicine, really
does have the capability to significantly
reduce suffering in the world. It would
also bring down the cost of medicines, and
reduce the burden on insurance.

Disrupter: Digital assistants, personalised tech
Disrupted: Apps, services
What Year: 2018 to 2020

his is probably what we see hap-
pening the soonest.

If the internet brought the
world to our doorstep, then social media
and smartphones made things more local-
ised and familiar (you make friends more
from the same city, or those who have
similar interests, have the same friends...
like a college clique). For the future, we’re
predicting that tech will have to make
things hyper-local, and be focussed on
you, and you alone.

You can already see from digital assis-
tants that every big company is putting
out there that people feel the money lies
in making the technology seem more per-
sonal. You are now so special, and people
want your business so much, that they’re
designing their technologies to appear
tailor-made for you.

It’s all mind-games, and the psycho-
logical warfare is being kicked into top
gear now. We’ve written in the past about
how you are walking money, and the more
unique users a site or service can boast of,
and the more information they have about
those unique users, the more said site or
service is valued in the market. This is the
one thing that will never change. Unless
rats can figure out how to make money
and buy stuff (the creativity and persis-
tence of our office rats sometimes make
us think this could actually be possible),
humans are going to be the real currency
of the future.

The next step in technology is to
make your phone unique to you, or your

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Facebook’s new personal assistant, M

interface with technology unique to you.
Netflix (for those who’ve used it) makes
different profiles for different people in
the house, based on the movies each one
of you watch, your gender, age, etc. The
movies it suggests get more relevant over
time. It ‘learns’. So does Facebook, and
YouTube, and every other service. So why

Apart from just big data and net-
working, a mix of sensor technologies,
wearable tech and standard communica-
tion protocols will mean that if you ever
collapse on a road, the first paramedic
who reaches you in the ambulance (or
for India, when you are wheeled into the
emergency room of a hospital) your entire
medical history can be downloaded from
a wristband that you’re wearing, or maybe
from your smartphone, or smartwatch.

does Siri talk to every iPhone user the
same way? What about Cortana? Face-
book has started experimenting with M, a
chat agent in Messenger that you can talk
to and ask questions, and even get it to buy
you things (using your money of course).

The idea’s not new, to be honest.
Services such as Magic (US only), allow
you to chat with a person who acts like
an assistant and gets things done. Let’s
say you are busy at work, it’s your mum’s
birthday, and even though you will be
late to see her (or maybe she’s in a dif-
ferent city), you can chat with someone,
ask them for suggestions on what you
can buy your mum, ask them about your
options for flowers, and they will provide
you all the information that you could
have found yourself, eventually. They
take a small “tip” for their services when
you transact with them, but really, they
just do what you could have with smart
Googling skills and half an hour of focus.
A great service for those who don’t have
that half an hour to spare, and prefer the
chat interface.

However, it’s not just assistants, we
see apps, phone OSes, and everything
learning from your behaviour, and
adapting to be more relevant to you. Your
entire interface with technology might
just end up being like your Facebook time-
line - finely tuned to getting you to “just
keep scrolling, just keep scrolling” - say
that out loud in your best Dory imitation
(the blue forgetful fish in Finding Nemo,
voiced by Ellen DeGeneres).

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Cover story

Disrupter: Maker tech

Disrupted: Traditional tech companies

What Year: Already happening

ecently we’ve covered the maker
^^^Wrevolution in stories and even in
this month’s Fast Track. Why?
Because with the digital age come digital
children. Kids born in the last IS years
have always known technology to be
a part of their lives. Sure there have
been improvements, but by and large,
technology is not this alien thing to
be poked at suspiciously. Most of our
grandparents (and quite a few parents)
fall into this category of the non-tech-
enabled generations. Many of them have
learned and adapted, true, but it is still
alien to them. It’s like you learning to
speak another language on your own as
an adult - sure some will manage beauti-
fully, but most will never be anywhere as
good as those who grew up speaking
that language.

It’s the same for the digital age kids.
They are just so much more fluent in
geek, that they can’t help being coders
and makers. We see the future of tech-
nology as being driven by individuals,
for individuals. You will write or modify
apps to your liking, and then share that

data, and then someone will further
modify that to suit themselves, etc. It’s
the open source project, but on steroids,
and with a more selfish goal - to keep
yourself happy and productive.

Already the simplified app creators
exist, so that many can build their own
simple apps. Want an app that pulls
various RSS feeds and throws them
together to look like a professional news
app? You don’t need to code it from
scratch, there are tonnes of free or paid
app builders that will do the job for you
in a jiffy. You can literally have an app in
a day, and it will look pretty personalised
too. Goodbarber is an example that this
writer has used, but there are hundreds.
Wix allows you to build responsive,
mobile-friendly sites, and quickly. It’s
also just one amongst hundreds.

However, all this is best for the older
generations who don’t know how to code,
and just want point and click creator
tools. The next generation is not going to
need any of these. They will build on top
of much more complex apps, and help
better the personalised experience.

Barber

GoodBarber Lets you easily make apps

What does this do for the evolution of
technology? Think adrenaline injection
directly to the heart. What we’re going to
get is literally smart networked individ-
uals processing their own little problems,
but adding up to an insane amount of
maker power. A human supercomputer
of sorts, where every human is crunching
the problems unique to him / her, but in
doing so, is solving over 75 per cent of
the problems that a heck of a lot of other
people also share.

This human supercomputer will out-
perform the biggest and best supercom-
puters by orders of magnitude, because
it will have individual human creativity,
which machines don’t. However, in order to
achieve this on a much bigger and badder
scale than is already happening now, we
will need the next disruption to occur...

Disrupter: Free
Disrupted: ISPs
What Year: 2018

Internet

Traditional businesses ,
to 2025

potentially everything. . .

ventually, in some form or the
other, we really do need to get
everyone on to the internet
because a kid in a remote village in
Africa or India might have the smarts to
cure cancer or solve climate change, if
only he or she was given a proper formal
education, and allowed to get creative
with knowledge...

Yes, all of us at Digit are very well
aware that Internet.org, Project Loon and
Elon Musk’s satellites are all commercial
enterprises with very long term rewards.
We didn’t go ga-ga over Facebook’s reason

for supporting digital India, and we know
that PM Modi’s meeting with Zuckerberg
was a business meeting.

Still...

Does it hurt to let Facebook go from 1
billion users to 3, so long as those 2 more
billion get some access to the internet?
Facebook’s rebranded “Free Basics” might
be a scam in the making. Sure 1.99 billion
of them will just poke one another and
share silly forwards, but it’s that 1 per
cent that interests us. Of course they may
be locked into “Facebook’s version of the
Internet”, at first, but do you really believe

that smart people will be satisfied with
that? Would you be?

You know, for a fact, that had you been
stuck with Facebook’s firewalls, you’d
find a way to get access to more. VPNs,
TOR, tunnelling, whatever it would take.
Even paying for an ISP of your own. Just
as no one can suppress your hunger of
tech, Facebook, Google and SpaceX can
only do good by getting kids to discover
the internet. Will they get rich from doing
so? Of course they will. Is that a bad
enough reason to let half the world live in
oblivion? Hell no.

* Head Line inspired by: http://dgit.in/Disrupted

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Cover story

Disrupter: 4D printing, smart materials, 3D printing with mixed materials
Disrupted: Spare part dealers, simple manufacturing, China
What Year: 2025 to 2030

K. So what the heck is 4D printing
anyway. Some new fancy term for
faster 3D printing? Not really When
we use the term, we mean 3D printed
objects that can assemble themselves into
more complex structures.

The materials used here are called smart
materials, which isn’t the traditional use of
the word “smart” - the materials them-
selves don’t think... but then again, neither
does your phone or TV, and they’re called
smart too ;-)

A smart material is one that changes
shape automatically to form a new shape.
Shape memory alloys are a type of smart
material, and they are able to remember
their resting shape. When we say
remember, we mean that they are able to
revert to a particular shape given the same
conditions of pressure, temperature, etc.

It’s not as simplistic as a football, which
changes shape all the time when it is kicked,
and then reverts to a near-spherical shape

because of the air pressure and the shape of
the stitched leather. Here we mean a mate-
rial which will take one shape to start with
and then transform into a more complex
shape. So, for, example, in MIT labs, they’re
3D printing strings, which when put into a
liquid, will transform and become anything
they want - “MIT” written in cursive, the
shape of a protein, etc. If you wanted to 3D
print that shape, it would be complex, you’d
need a much more expensive 3D printer,
and it would be a slow printing process.
With smart materials you can quickly print
a flattish shape - say, a cardboard cutout-
like cross - that folds up to become a cube.
Printing a hollow cube would be a pain
with a 3D printer, but a cross is easy. Then
you leave it in a solution, and it folds itself
to become a cube!

All of this is made possible by 3D
printing, and some would say it’s just
all advancements in 3D printing. How-
ever, with more and more materials and

smart materials finding their way into 3D
printing, that day is not far off when you
will be able to print your own spare parts
at home. Want a carbon fibre tennis racket?
Print it! Want new shoes, but with your
own personal design on them? Print those
out too...

Marry the previous disrupter with this
one, and you can see how it spells doom
for all those little repair shops everywhere.
Spare parts business? What would be the
point of that? It might also be of global
significance. You know all those Chinese
things you buy - toys, gadgets, everything...
- why buy them when you can print them
yourself? It would just be cheaper in the
long run...

If 3D printing catches on as it should,
we’re predicting the end of China’s domi-
nance over everyday household products
that are shipped across the globe. They may
still make all the iPhones, but you will print
your own plastics for the home!

Disrupter : Internet
Disrupted: Education
What Year: 2020 onwards

e’re predicting the end of education
as we know it. Sure, maybe you
will still go to school to get a formal
education, but you may not have to learn as
a “classroom”, where everyone learns the
same things. You may actually choose or be
given the task of learning something very
different from other kids your age. This will
be a good thing. Also, expect to see more and
more adults going back to school.

With fast and consistent access to the
internet, most of us are already getting our
knowledge solely online. A few of the videos
and courseware from our Digit DVD and
the Fast Track and dmystify might help a lot
of you learn new things - and this is good
because it pays to have someone choose
what you should read about once in a while.

However, we’re willing to bet that most of
your reading and video watching is done
online. You’re usually looking for stuff based
on what you need at the moment.

So what do you do if you want to take up
a summer job at McDonald’s? You get some
wise-ass who has the IQ of a bug lecturing
you about using the fryer. Wouldn’t it be so
much cooler for McDonald’s to send you off
to a room with a computer and a fryer where
you attend an online course on how to fry,
well, fries. You then demonstrate to some
senior your fryer skills, and if satisfactory,
get on with working and earning some
pocket money. It’s a win for McDonald’s,
because they get to ensure uniformity of the
fries across locations, and for you because
you don’t have to tortured by bug-boy.

It’s not just for simple jobs like that... you
could be an investment banker, and get
a quick crash course in a new software
product. It could be a Yoga course to help
you relax, and control your blood pres-
sure during intense stock trading sessions,
leading to more cool-headed deals.

Just bought a drone from China? Take a
quick crash course in how to assemble and
program it. Literally anything you wanted to
learn, could be taught to you.

Technology is set to change the edu-
cation game in ways that they cannot
imagine. Many forward-looking educational
institutes are already investing in course-
ware and specific courses like the ones we
illustrated above. They will probably be left
standing when the dust settles.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Cover story

Disrupter: Robots f or humans
Disrupted: Manufacturing
What Year: 2022 to 2027

his one’s a toughie. We are offi-
cially sitting on the fence, and we
refuse to budge. Call us whatever
names you want to, we’re going to paint
both pictures and give you the tough job
of choosing whichever one you deem to be
the more likely future.

ROBOTS ARISE!

As big data is more pervasive about
everything, and as sensors give computers
more fine data to process and understand,
the machines will get smarter. Whether
they will attain sentience is stuff that we
leave for sci-fi writers to discuss, but we’re
all in agreement that they will get wiser.
They say with age comes experience
and wisdom, and robots (or machines in
general) will have more and more data to
work with and draw conclusions from.
With sensors going everywhere, and
reporting everything, robots will be able
to make fine adjustments that humans just
cannot - if you can’t see at a microscopic
level, you can’t adjust anything at that
level either.

Think Fl-level sensors and computa-
tions being done for your Maruti! Surely
performance will increase in every aspect.
Now apply that to all manufacturing,
and you will arrive at perfectly designed

everything, made to precision by robots.
As we demand more and more from our
products, with them getting ever smaller
and complex, can anything but robots
build any of the things we want anyway?

Industrial robots are evolving

ROBOTS FALL

The flip-side is that there are just too
many humans. In the end, it all boils down
to money. Currently, robots are cheaper
for specific tasks that are repetitive and
need high precision.

Now it is possible that the prosumers
will end up making (3D printing) their
own stuff, leaving the regular folk to pay
for factory made things. With so many

Disrupter: Trolls
Disrupted : Everything

What Year: 10,000 BC to tomorrow (we can hope)

hen talking about disruption, it
seems a little obvious to mention
trolls. They live to disrupt. They
thrive on chaos. It’s the internet version
of vandals and arsonists, looking to laugh
maniacally as everything is smashed and
burned to the ground.

“Catch them, line them up, and execute
the lot!”, some would scream. “Off with their
heads!”, screams another victim. However,

we’d rather stay their execution for now.

See, we are firm believers that trolls are a
necessary evil for society to improve itself.
It’s important for people to get their but-
tons pushed, and to explode every
now and then, and then realise that what
they did was idiotic. Some believe that
reacting to trolls shows thin skin, and a
weak character. What trolls do is toughen
you up and make you thick skinned,

humans on the planet, and the number
only growing, it’s not hard to imagine the
costs of semi-skilled and skilled labour
going down (relatively speaking). If the
free internet projects take off, and more
and more people get access to technology,
there will be an abundance of labour, all
willing to work for cheaper than the costs
of setting up robot factories.

Besides, the envelope is being pushed
in every field. Take the humble fan for
example. Yes, the table fan. As anyone
with kids will tell you, it’s a nightmare
trying to keep toddlers from sticking
their fingers in the fan to touch the
blades. Thus, the bladeless fan was
invented. Then LEDs added, and they
became a fashion statement. Traditional
fan makers, have to start adding colours,
and change the shape of blades, or add
LEDs, automatic timers, sensors to pre-
vent over-heating, etc. The days of design
once and forget are long gone, and people
want to follow fads. All this constant
change means that robots become too
expensive to keep reprogramming, and
people are just easier to re-train. This is
the main reason why we feel that there
just will be no space for robots in almost
all of the world, barring a few underpop-
ulated countries.

which in turn makes you more mature.
However, not all trolls are just pointless
hate spewing machines. The definition of
troll itself is different for different people.
One person’s troll is another’s brutally
honest commentator who just happened
to get under your thin skin.

We believe that trolls will drastically
change society for the better in the near
future, mainly because they... □

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Sci-Tech

Peeping Tom

A woman is suing Airbnb after she
found hidden cameras installed

http://dgit.in/airbnbsue

Adopt an Emoji!

You can now adopt any Unicode character
to support development of new emoji!

http://dgit.in/EmojiAdopt

Sandhya Ramesh
reodersletters@digit.in

Y ou’re going to be thoroughly

spoilt for choices when planning
a holiday a century from now.

You will still be able to go to the
Grand Canyon or the Great Barrier Reef,
but you will have to weigh those options
against taking a weekend flight to the
Moon and back. On the Moon you could
take a tour of historic landing sites, check
out artefacts, visit planned outposts,
take a dune buggy ride across the dusty
plains, and click a selfie with the Earth
in the background (sadly, yes, selfies will
still be around). You could also pop in to
visit the astronauts on the space station
on your way back, before finally riding a
rollercoaster-like descent vehicle back
into the atmosphere for kicks.

Today, we’re already taking baby steps
towards realising this seemingly fantas-
tic vision. Space is finally opening up to
someone other than governments, and
that’s a good thing. Private companies
need to make a profit in the end, and that
means a rush to improve technologies
and reduce costs. Unlike government aid-
ed space programs, the private industry
needs to see a clear path to profitability,
and every dollar spent is duly accounted
for by shareholders.

Rocket engines today are almost
exactly what they were during the Cold
War. And the monopoly of a few entities
manning the gateway to space has to be
broken. ULA, America’s leading rocket
launch service provider, charges over $225
million per launch, as stated on their web-
site. A more recent launch, which we shall
look at in a bit, cost just one-fifth of this, at
$54 million. It’s not just private companies
aiding in this reduction of prices, it’s also

How is today’s space
race shaping the present
and the future of space
exploration?

a more global push for space by more
governments. India, as you all remember,
recently led the cheapest successful mis-
sion to Mars, ever.

However, it’s a bunch of pioneers with
keen business acumen that will really
make space more accessible to everyone.

What is Space?

Talking about exploring space conjures up
images of people in rockets and space-
ships, flying off to visit planets. Very Star

m indi y i- p#F-

Curigrala Spa&frX on landing Falcon's
ELiborbllal booster stage. Welcome to Ihe
Clyt>!

!ST M£*V:iiil£3K

13 - *

Keep it classy Mr. Bezos!

Trek- and Star Wars-ish. However, where
does space really start? Nowhere specific,
to be honest because the atmosphere
doesn’t abruptly stop existing, it just
gradually thins out into vacuum. So we
can’t really use the amount of molecules
per given volume, but we can use temper-
ature. As you go higher, temperature goes
down. Anyone who’s been in an aeroplane
knows that it’s ridiculously cold outside,
but pretty warm inside thanks to the air
pressure. But what temperature should

we choose? So how do we go about decid-
ing where space starts? The Karman line,
named after Theodore von Karman, who
calculated that if you were in an aircraft,
and kept going higher, at one point you’d
have to be going exactly at orbital velocity
to get the required lift to go any higher.
Orbital velocity is the point at which the
attraction of gravity and inertia of a body
to move out in a straight line instead of fol-
lowing the Earth’s curvature balance out,
and you achieve a stable orbit. This point
is about 100 km above the surface of the
Earth. So if you’re flying below the Karman
line you’re a mere pilot, and above, you’re
an astronaut (or cosmonaut).

Space tourism

Obviously, when people are talking about
space tourism, they’re talking about tak-
ing people above the Karman line, and
obviously, bringing them back.

Anyone who’s seen videos of the
Challenger disaster and then the later
Columbia one (1986 and 2003 respec-
tively), know that space is not a game.

It’s dangerous business. It’s hard enough
to go to space, but coming back to Earth
is just as risky.

While Challenger broke up during take
off, Columbia broke up during re-entry,
underscoring the very real and dangerous
risks of spaceflight. A lot of us in India
remember the Columbia disaster, not only
because it is more recent, but because
amongst the people killed was Kalpana
Chawla, who was the first woman of
Indian origin in space.

Any craft that enters the atmosphere
from space has to penetrate it at pre-
cisely the right angle. Otherwise, it might

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Night Light

GoogLe PLay Books adds a Night Light mode to
help you read comfortably under the covers.

http://dgit.in/NightLite

Xbox gets DDoS’d

Xbox Live was hit by a DDos and
Lizard Squad claims responsibility.

http://dgit.in/XboxDDoS

Space Age

Launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 with Dragon capsule for re-supply missions

Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital system

just bounce off the atmosphere or break
up. Furthermore, as the capsule carry-
ing humans enters the atmosphere, it is
in free fall, accelerating tremendously.
The sheer velocity of the entering craft
is so fast that the air molecules can’t
move away in time, and this causes such
high pressures, that the air is turned
into plasma (the fourth state of matter).
Space craft have heat shields to keep the
colossal amounts of heat from getting
into the craft. A part of the heat-shield
failed for the Columbia, and it’s sad that
they were literally vaporised!

However, that disaster made us more
careful, and all the buzz these days is
about the rockets that will carry us
into space. There just aren’t enough
things going up into space, because there
aren’t enough affordable rockets, and
there aren’t enough affordable rockets
because there aren’t enough things going
up into space.

Private vs. Government

For decades, space exploration and re-
search was in the hands of governments
the world over due to the prohibitive costs

for going into any mission - in the range
of billions of dollars.

Businesses are not run by incurring
huge costs, coupled with tremendous
risks, and no real business model of
returns. That’s not something any share-
holder of a private company is going to
give a go ahead to. Countries, on the other
hand, are run by politicians, who have
very different agendas, and are willing
to loosen the purse strings for non-mon-
etary gain, such as national pride, and
winning the Cold War, for example. This
is why countries push the frontiers, and
companies make it cheap and profitable
once all the risks are known.

Today, Low Earth Orbit space travel
has known risks, and that’s why private
companies are needed to take the baton
over from countries, to do what they do
best - compete, find ways to bring down
costs, and invent new business models.

While countries push the frontiers
even further, it’s up to the private compa-
nies to make the known frontiers more ef-
ficient. Why wouldn’t NASA or ISRO use a
private company to launch their satellites
or payloads when a private company can
do it at half their cost? Since the biggest
clients for private companies will be the
government programs themselves, we’re
at a point where they will all work in a
symbiotic relationship.

The new entrants

Every private space launch company
out there is aiming to bring launch costs
down for rockets. The most well-known
name is obviously Elon Musk’s SpaceX,
which has set the ultimate goal for them-
selves of colonising Mars.

SpaceX has set all kinds of records:
their Dragon was the first private craft to
launch, orbit, dock with the ISS, and be
recovered; Falcon 1 was the first private
rocket to launch into orbit; Grasshopper
was the first technology demonstrator
to take off vertically and land verti-
cally (VTVL) from a short height, and the
mighty Falcon 9, the first private rocket
to attempt a vertical landing after launch-
ing into space, failing soft landing thrice
before finally succeeding this month.

The other big name suddenly is Jeff
Bezos’s Blue Origin. Taking the whole

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Space Age

- ^ i- . —

Bulletproof Tesla

There's a bullet proof version of the Tesla

f ii

Model S in the upcoming movie, The Brothers

Grimsby. http://dgit.in/TeslaBltPrf

k A

world by surprise, Bezos announced on
Twitter — with a video, no less! — that the
New Shepard rocket managed to achieve
perfect Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing
(VTVL) after reaching outer space. New
Shepard crossed the Karman Line and
reached outer space at 105 km.

Bezos’s announcement not only brought
him a lot of attention, but also triggered
a slew of defensive responses from Musk
who chose to explain why Falcon 9 and
New Shepard are not really comparable.

Musk is right. Blue Origin’s New Shep-
ard (NS), while impressive, is not exactly an
equal competitor to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 (F9).
Although these two are currently the hot
favourites in any reusable rocket discus-
sion, they are two very different projects.

The instant you see images of F9 and
NS side by side, you know they’re differ-
ent. F9 is thin and long, while NS is short
and stubby. F9 is meant for launching

It’s all progress anyway right Mr. Musk?

payloads into orbit around the Earth and
to the ISS. NS is meant for suborbital
flights, which means the flight will not
complete a full orbit around Earth, and
carrying a maximum of 4 people. In
keeping in line with the purpose, the two
rockets have very different designs. F9
is very thin and streamlined so as to pre-
vent drag and exit the earth’s atmosphere
easily to go into space. NS, on the other
hand, has a thick sturdy, shorter body and
is much wider in girth than the F9. Both
the rockets attempt to land the first stage
back. This is the stage that usually breaks
away from the structure and falls back
into the sea, as the rest of the compo-
nents (second stage and higher) proceed
further into their journey.

The height and velocity at which the
stage breaks away for each rocket are
also important factors to be taken into
consideration. At nearly 200 km, F9 goes
twice as high as NS does before the first

stage separates and begins descent. Also,
since F9 aims to get to orbital velocity,
its velocity at approximately 9000 kmph
is thrice as high during separation as
the SN’s 3000 kmph. This, in addition to
different orientation as well. The Falcon
9 turns parallel to the Earth’s surface
during first stage separation, while NS
remains vertical, the way it took off.

All of this is important because each
private company has different targets
and as a whole are bringing space travel
closer to the common man. Apart from
these two, there are also other names.
The third biggest is probably Richard
Branson’s Virgin Galactic. The Space-
ShipTwo is a "spaceplane” that can fly
both in air and space, and gets launched
after being carried up to a specific
altitude. Virgin Galactic infamously has
people with tickets waiting in line to
get to space on the SpaceShipTwo, but
hasn’t successfully managed to
launch it into orbit safely. In fact,
the breakup of a test craft in late
2014 causing the death of a pilot
was a rude reminder to the world
just how delicate and fragile
spaceflight still is.

Yet another name that crops up
is XCOR, whose Horizontal Takeoff
Horizontal Landing (HTHL) craft,
much like SpaceShipTwo, is called Lynx
and is scheduled to be tested sometime
next year. The British company Reaction
Engines Limited meanwhile has a similar
plan for Skylon, funded by the British
govt. Skylon is an ambitious craft that
aims to take off and land on a runway
like a regular aeroplane. Sierra Nevada’s
Dream Chaser targets almost exactly the
same mechanism. India’s space agency,
ISRO, is looking to develop a shuttle pro-
gram as well. There are other companies
that are known for their satellite making
prowess, like Orbital, that both makes
and launches its own satellites in its
own rockets.

All of them are ambitious with ground
breaking designs that will bring about
radical changes in the space sector in
the process of transformation to space
"industry”. All of the private companies in
the space industry are trying to achieve
one common goal: reusability.

Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for
achieving VTOL on their booster

Templates are here!

Templates are coming to Google Docs, Sheets and
Slides for Android and iOS. Now, you don't have to
start from scratch. http://dgit.in/DocsTemplate

Reusability

That’s the magic word, really. In any
industry, reusability is always a key
component in the manufacturing process.
It lowers development costs, improves
accuracy, and increases safety.

Would you fly if every flight from
Mumbai to New Delhi cost you Rs. 15
lakh. Then once you got there you saw
them dump the plane in the ocean, before
rebuilding a plane from scratch for the
next flight home? This is exactly where
rockets are today. The average cost of a
rocket launch was somewhere between
$200 million to $500 million. The now
reusable Falcon 9, in December 2015,
charged just $54 million, and this cost
will go down with every reusable launch.
This is why we feel that reusable rockets
are more promising than HTHL experi-
mental crafts at the moment.

Reusability comes at a much higher
initial cost though. Still, since we’re not
going to give up on space anytime soon,
and we will need more and more satel-
lites to enhance our communications and
GPS over the decades, it’s not like that
research will be in vain. Reusable compo-
nents go a long way towards reducing the
space debris floating around.

The future

Fifty years from now, you won’t just fly to
space, you will get a choice of packages.
You could just do a simple crossing of
the Karman line and coming back, or you
could orbit the Earth a couple of times.

A century from now we hope the sce-
nario we painted in the beginning
of this article will be achievable. Hope-
fully, SpaceX will realise their dream,
and allow our great-grandkids to
choose if they want to travel and settle
on Mars or Venus! Maybe probes dig-
ging around on Jupiter’s and Saturn’s icy
moons will report signs of life back to
our descendants. It’s the only real fron-
tier left, and the universe is unlimited
in sheer size comparison to us. We’re
going to have to get off this rock eventu-
ally to survive, and we are the generation
that will be remembered throug hout
history as the ones who started and sup-
ported the first initial steps to achieving
just that. 4

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

(MUST READS)

70 DAYS ON BED, FOR
SCIENCE

When the news broke that NASA
is paying $ 1 8k for tying down
on the bed for 70 days, many
applied but only one was selected.
Andrew Iwanicki shares his expe-
rience of those 70 days and after
http://dgit.in/70DavslnBed

INTERVIEWING THE
CREATORS OF BB8

In an interview, BB8 creators Josh
and Matt unveil the inspiration
and inner workings of the BB8
robot. From the rough sketches to
the finished eight BB8’s that were
made, they spill the beans out on
everything about BB8.

http://dgit.in/FathersofBB8

THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION TO
CLICKBAIT

If you are reading this just
because of the headline, chances
are you might have fell for click-
bait yet again. So why do we easily
fall prey to these curiosity building
witty headlines floating on the
internet? Learn how to avoid get-
ting manipulated by them.
http://dgit.in/Clickbaited

ARE YOU LISTENING?

In a successful video, it’s not
only the appearance, camera
angles and visuals that create
that impact on your audience.

It’s high time you start "talking to
your audience” to make sure you
always have their attention. Pay
very close attention to this art.
http://dgit.in/YTLinguistics

Hey Siri, are we there yet?

The so called next big thing, virtual
personal assistants like Siri, Cortana
and Google Now seem to be getting
more intelligent as well as proving to be
much more useful, no doubt. But how
long would we have to wait till we attain
the total "digital nirvana”?
http://dgit.in/AsstntProgChrt

Self-driving cars teardown

With Google and Apple jumping in to
build self-driving cars, what can we
expect in the future? Who will they
collaborate with? What could the car
be like? This ultimate teardown of self
driving cars has answers to these as
well as many more questions.
http://dgit.in/SDCarsTeardown

Sync your second screen soon?

With Smart home and loT
developments rising everyday, can it
also pack in the ability to synchronize
all your screens automatically? Miss
nothing as the future might be able to
let you sync your Phone, TV, Notebook
and many more screens.
http://dgit.in/SyncUrDisplay

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in 67

(worldview)

DON'T WAIT. AUTOMATE
YOUR LIFE, NOW!

r J& Waiting for
to kick
in so you
could lead a smarter life? You
definitely can keep waiting
or get influenced by this pro-
grammer who created python
scripts for almost all tasks
that took over 90 seconds.
Lazy? We think innovative!
http://dgit.in/AutomatedLife

BEHOLD! THE MALLS OF
THE FUTURE

KEEP EVERYTHING
ENCRYPTED

360-degree VR
1 clothing trials,
hoverboards to

1 Just when no
1 information or
1 channel is pro-

go around, automated bill
desks with no queue. What
else would you want to see in
the technologically advanced
malls? We take you to the
future, showing you what can
the malls in the future have?
http://dgit.in/FutureofMalls

tected enough and there are
chances of it getting leaked,
we give you a list of security
essentials that will guarantee
maximum protection and
encryption, even in your day
to day use.

http://dgit.in/EncryptUrself

THEY ARE WATCHING
YOUR BEHAVIOUR!

In this decade,
it is difficult
to distinguish
between your compulsion to
use the internet and to get
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The refurbished smartphone buying guide

India has a slew of retailers hawking refurbished smartphones, but
can you trust all of them? Here’s what you can expect when buying a
refurbished smartphone in India.

By Adamya Sharma

T he smartphone industry has,
since long, given rise to a slew of
supporting industries that have
made it possible for us to max-
imise our experience of using the handheld
devices. They keep upping the ante with
bigger, thinner, faster, newer and in all ways
addictive smartphones and then they make
us pay a ransom to own them.

But, the world always finds a way to bal-
ance itself out. In this situation too, there
are middle men. People who can give us
the best of both worlds, or at least hope to.
This is the refurbishing industry, a place
where smartphones come to die... and then
be reborn. These places resuscitate life
into devices, price them cheaper than their
original unaffordable price tags and then
sell them to people like us, who just can’t
do without that latest iPhone or maybe the
S6 Edge. It’s called recommence, the activity
of buying and selling refurbished goods.

“Customers across the price segment
desire to own a better/higher priced phone
but at a budget they wish to spend. This
holds good for entry level phones, mid
variant phones like YU Yureka and Moto G
and high-end like Apple iPhones too,” notes
Karthik J, Senior Market Analyst, Client
Devices, IDC India.

The refurbishing industry finds itself in
a constant state of flux and there are occa-
sions when consumers have a difficult time
accepting a second hand product or one that
has gone through a bit of tinkering post an

accident or even one that was returned to
ecommerce merchants like Flipkart or
Amazon because someone didn’t want
them. However, competition in the world of
refurbished devices is heating up fast with
Amazon and Ebay’s signal of intent.

So, we decided to take a look at India’s
various refurbishing outlets and tell you
just what to expect from each one of them.
We also used a refurbished device for a
week to judge its quality for ourselves. So,
from ecommerce to recommerce, read on
and find out if refurbished gadgets are a
bang for your buck.

Gobol

Gobol is an extension of recycling firm
Attero, which sells refurbished smart-
phones, tablets and supporting accessories.
Gobol has divided its smartphone product

inventory into various categories such as
surplus, factory seconds, refurbished and
pre-owned. This category bifurcation is
purely to differentiate between the price
of the products. “The reason we have kept
different categories is that every consumer
will have his own preferred price point. You
may want to buy a brand new iPhone and I
may be ok with a scratchy iPhone because
Ireally need an iPhone,” says Gupta.

The next question that naturally comes
to mind is - what about the warranty?

Well, like most other refurbishers,
Gobol offers both brand warranty and its
own standard 6 month warranty. Brand
warranty here refers to the left-over war-
ranty of a device from the date of its original
purchase. So if I bought a Samsung Galaxy
S6 and decided to sell it to Attero after 6
months, that time period is excluded from
the phones warranty period when Attero
sells it to its customers. All products under
‘Surplus’ and ‘Super Buy’ category and
most of the products under ‘Carton Dam-
aged’ and ‘Refurbished’ carry manufacturer
warranty, unless specified otherwise.

The second type is Gobol’s seller war-
ranty which is applicable on ‘Refurbished’
and ‘Pre-owned’ products only.

Pricing of smartphones on sale with
Gobol is determined by an algorithm devel-
oped by Attero itself. Rohan explains that
“We have an algorithm that we have devel-
oped in house which consists of multiple
things like brand, quality, warranty, life-

68 Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

(worldview)

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cycle and other things. Discounts on smart-
phones vary from 10% to 60% depending
on these factors.”

The company has its own refurbishing
unit which carries out more than a 100
checks using OEM grade equipment to
ensure stringent quality checks.

Overcart

Overcart is yet another destination for
buying pre-owned, unboxed and refur-
bished electronics. They do not refurbish
these devices themselves. The smart-
phones sold here are refurbished by manu-
facturers themselves.

“We have consciously taken a call not to
refurbish ourselves mainly because these
are usually not used products. On our web-
site there are chances that if a product has
been marked as pre-owned, they are still
not used except maybe there are nicks and
cuts on the product itself that makes it seem
not new. It’s okay to underpromise and
overdeliver on these things than the other
way around,” explains Saptarshi Nath, Co-
Founder, Overcart

The company claims that 99% of its
smartphone inventory is new, what we
don’t agree with is their policy of ‘under-
promising’. Why lead consumers to believe
they are buying a pre-owned product when
its actually never been used? Something
here does not feel right.

Another disturbing fact emerged when
we questioned them about their quality
check procedures. “We have an app for
instance that acts as a CT Scan for your
phone. Once it’s installed on the phone, it
will see if all the sensors are working. So,
we take out a lot of the manual part of the
testing process.” Now, the Overcart website
states that it has a 72-point quality check,
but the company was very vague with

assured’ refurbished devices which
have the same after sales support as new
devices. Amazon has partnered with Sur-
pluss.in, an online retailer of refurbished
devices, to procure smartphones for their
refurbished category. As per the agree-
ment, Amazon will buy Samsung, Xiaomi,
Apple, OnePlus, Motorola, Micromax, and
Lava smartphones from Surpluss.in, for
sale on its own platform.

Amazon claims that all devices sold here
come with brand warranty and are refur-
bished by the manufacturer themselves.

As far as price is concerned, Amazon
refurbished phones are usually discounted
by 2-3k and since these devices are refur-
bished by manufacturers, they function
exactly like a brand new device except for
a few cosmetic blemishes mentioned on
the product’s details page. All refurbished
smartphones sold on Amazon come with a
standard 6 month warranty, sealed pack-
aging and a 10 day return policy.

Greendust

Greendust not only sells refurbished smart-
phones but also other consumer electronics.
The company is retail offshoot of its parent
firm, Reverse Logistics. What Green-
dust does is very similar to Attero. They
restore factory seconds, surplus products
and carton damaged products which have
never been used. In case of most products,
including smartphones, they do a 50 point
quality check before making these items
available for resale.

The big difference between Greendust
and all other refurbishing platforms is that
they offer a 1 year warranty on all their
refurbished devices.

Read our experience of buying a refurbished
Nexus 6 and much more on refurbished buying des-
tinations: http://dgit.in/RefurbBuyingGuide E3

A section at the Attero refurbishing facility

details about these checks. We were told it
takes 5-6 minutes to check each device.

The price discounts shown on the Over-
cart website weren’t exactly reassuring
either. A Motorola X Gen 2 (32GB) smart-
phone is listed with a 55% discount but
that discount is on the launch price of the
device which was actually ^32,999 (and not
^33,999 as shown in the screenshot). The
price of a Moto X Gen 2 (32 GB) has since
been slashed down to ^18k for a brand new
model. Not much of a discount here, is it?

Make sure you check prices of new
devices before purchasing on Overcart.

Amazon

Back in August, Amazon started selling
refurbished smartphones in India as well.
The company claims that they sell ‘quality

■i

g I 3

Screen grab from Overcart.com showing 55%
discount on Moto X Gen 2 (32GB)

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in 69

(worldview)

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Charlie Schneider on his
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70 Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

The very popular web and
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> code / creativity / community >

worx>

Ansible: A quick guide to
quicker deployments

»AnsibLe lets you deploy complex interdependent and
interacting web services using a simple script and no |
programming.> by Kshitij

A s the complexity of web application servers increases,
it gets increasingly hard to orchestrate deployments.
Today a web application serving a sizable audience
requires a diverse array of servers that handle different
things, and interact with each other in complex ways.

A web app is likely to have different servers for the database,
serving static files, multiple servers for serving dynamic app con-
tent, and often servers to run asynchronous tasks like re-sizing
images or other longer-running tasks.

Each server will have its own setup of
installed packages, configuration set-
tings, and active services. To interact
with each other these servers will need
to know about each other as well.

If you set it all up by hand you need
to ensure you have the right packages
installed, the right configuration files in the right places, and ensure
that the right services are running. Its easy to skip a step by mis-
take, and then waste time scratching your head wondering what
went wrong.

This can quickly get repetitive and tedious, and its quite obvious
that doing this manually is not the right way. Fortunately there is
an increasing array of tools designed to alleviate this headache.
Configuration management, or IT Automation software like Chef,
Puppet, SaltStack and Ansible are available, and they help you
define your configuration in one place, and then apply it to your
infrastructure to get everything set up in a jiffy. We’re exploring
Ansible, a free and open-source configuration management tool
written in Python. While Ansible cannot run on Windows, it can
be used to manage and configure Windows servers as well.

|Getting Ansible|

Ansible only needs a recent version of Python 2 installed on to run.
Chances are you will find Ansible in your package manager. If your
primary OS is Windows, you can use Ansible on a virtual machine, it
is a command-line tool and not very resource-intensive for the client.
If you don’t find it there, you can install it using Pythons package
manager, pip using pip install ansible. You may need to use sudo with
that if you want to install it globally. To install it for the current user
you can use pip install --user ansible.

ANSI BL£

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»Windows iOS Bridge is a
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applications for Windows.

devworx> I January 2016 I www.devworx.in 71

devworx>

|AnsibLe Concepts!

Inventory

Since the whole point of Ansible is to configure and manage remote
servers, you need to provide a list of your remote servers somehow.
This is accomplished by adding these to a hosts file that could be
configured globally for all your projects, or locally for a single
project. Ansible calls this your inventory.

The inventory file is simply a text file conventionally named hosts,
that has a list of all your servers. These servers can be grouped
together to apply the same configuration to all servers in a group. You
can even have groups of groups. This file can also include additional
variables for configuring each host, such as the remote username,
the kind of connection to use, the port, etc. It’s even possible to create
groups of groups and group-level variables and a lot more.

If you use a cloud hosting service like DigitalOcean or RackSpace
or Amazon EC2, you can even use scripts that create a dynamic
inventory based your hosting account.

Ansible Tower is the commercial version of Ansible that includes a
web-based interface.

Here is an example of what this file could look like:
[databases]

dbl.server.com ansible_user=ubuntu
db2.server.com ansible_host=192. 168. 1.27

[appservers]

appl.server.com:27

app2.server.com

Commands

With Ansible, rather than connecting to your server using SSH
and then running commands, you specify a host on which to run
a command and the command to run there. Ansible will connect
to the server using SSH and run the task for you.

This may seem like a nuisance rather than a benefit, but
remember that with Ansible you can have groups of hosts. This
way you can run a command on hundreds of hosts at once. For
instance if you have all your webservers defined under a group
called webservers you can restart the Nginx Webserver on all of
them at once using:

ansible webservers -m service -a "name=nginx state=restarted"

72 devworx> I January 2016 I www.devworx.in

In the above, webservers is the name of the group of hosts
(or single host), and -m service here tells Ansible to run the ser-
vice module used to restart services using init, systemd or upstart and
following -a are the parameters to pass to the service module, which
are the name of the service and its state.

If your command needs sudo to run, you can add the param-
eter --become, and add -ask-become-pass to have Ansible ask you
the sudo password.

|Playbooks|

Running a command at a time has its uses, but what Ansible really is
for, is building a list of such commands as tasks, and then applying
these sequence of commands to a host to get it into the state you want.

Ansible does this using Playbooks; these are text files written
using the YAML format that describe a servers configuration. In a
playbook you specify a set of tasks to perform on each host or host
group. When you run Ansible on this file, it will perform these
tasks one-by-one on all the supplied hosts.

A task is a single step in configuring a host. Such as creating a user,
copying a file to the server, enabling / disabling / restarting a ser-
vice, cloning / updating a code repository, installing / uninstalling
/ updating a package etc. Through multiple steps you can get the
server set up the way you want.

Ansible only performs a task if its necessary. If the package you
want is already present, it wont install it again. It won’t copy over
a configuration file if it hasn’t changed, etc.

Tasks can also be grouped by tags. You can then provide a tag
while using the Ansible command, to run only the tasks having
that tag.

Notification Hooks

What if you only want to run a task based on whether another task
needed to run? For instance, restart Apache only if its configuration
file was updated. For this, Ansible has notifications and handlers.

Notification-handler tasks are only run if they are notified to run
as the result of a standard task. Such a notification task could then
be to restart Apache server. The Apache config setup task can then
add the Apache server restart task as its notification task.

You can also use Ansible’s integrations with SMS services and
mobile push notification services to send a notification message
based on what happens during a run of your playbook.

To simplify reuse, you can even bundle up a couple of tasks together
into a role, and then apply one or more roles to a host. For instance
you would create an apache role that does all the work of installing,
configuring and starting Apache, and includes a hook to restart
Apache if needed. This role can then be applied to a server.

You could also create a database role for your database, and
have your web and database server on the same host by applying
both roles to the same host, or separate them by applying the roles
to different host.

[Templates and Variables!

It is essential for a configuration management tool to, well, manage
configuration files. Often this means editing and changing bits in
configuration files to fill in details like IP addresses, server ports,

devworx>

directory paths, email addresses, user names
and other bits of information.

Any such information can be stored in vari-
ables which are embedded in configuration files.
This way you can change a parameter in one
place, and have it automatically update all the
configuration files that need that value.

To manipulate text configuration files, Ansible
include a rather powerful template engine called
Jinja2. Using Jinja2 you can perform advanced
text manipulation, such as looping over variables
to build lists, and applying filters to text content.
There is a simple Ansible command that can
process a configuration file template, and copy
it in the right place on the remote server.

[srsns

When you run an Ansible playbook it first
gathers a large collection of facts about the remote
server such as the server architecture, OS, kernel
details, date and time, hardware details, network
connection details (like the IP address), hard disk
partition details, and a lot more. In addition to
using the variable you supply yourself, you can
also use these gathered facts in your configura-
tion files.

For instance, to set up the load-balancer situ-
ation we described before, the load-balancing
servers’ config file could automatically fill in the
IPs of all your app servers. Now you could just
increment a variable that controls the number
of app servers and Ansible will automatically
set up the new app server and include it in the
load-balancer config.

|Building the Linux Kernel with Ansible

Lets now create an Ansible playbook that will
compile the Linux kernel for us. Before we can
begin writing our script, we should understand
the manual steps involved in this process. Our
script should perform the following steps:

• Install a compiler and other developer tools
to compile the kernel. Remember we assume
it is a fresh system, Ansible will only install
these packages if not already present.

• Install git to get a local copy of the Linux
source code.

• Run make mrproper in the source directory
to clean it.

• Run make defconfig to create a default con-
figuration file. Better yet, we could build a
nice config and copy it to the server instead.

• Run m a ke -j ■ 4 . Here 4 specifies how many com-
pilation steps to run in parallel. Increase if
your system can handle more.

• Run make tarxz-pkg make a compressed
package with the kernel. Or you could
run make rpm-pkg or make deb-pkg to create
an rpm or deb package.

*Ansible Quick Start
Video

»This official video by Ansible
will help you get better acquainted
with the tool.

» If you want a quick look
into how to achieve continuous
integration and delivery with
Ansible this video does just that.

Etymology of
Jargon

» Where does some of the
weirder or confusing terms and
conventions in programming come
from? Watch this video:

*SaltStack

»The four major players in the
configuration management space
are contrasted and compared
in this Google Hangout video by

If you have an account on
Amazon AWS or similar, you could
create a temporary server to run
all this on. Else, it is possible to
test with local commands on your
computer as well. We will assume
you are running Ansible commands locally in
the following steps as that will work for most
people. You could also create a virtual machine
and manage that using Ansible.

|Our Ansible PLaybook|

Lets start by creating our Ansible playbook script
and call it build-kernel.yaml with the following
contents:

- hosts: localhost
vars:

code_path: /home/ubuntu/linux/
tasks:

- name: Update System

become: yes

apt: upgrade=yes update_cache=yes

Here the first line — and the last line ... are con-
ventions of the YAML format, and not specific to
Ansible. YAML is a text format for representing
data like XML or JSON, but we won’t delve much
more into it here. The Wikipedia page on YAML
is a good introduction to the format.

What we see here, is a playbook with one task.
This task has a name of Update System; this is
what will be shown in the terminal when this
playbook is run. The actual task here is called apt,
which is the name of the package manager on
Debian, and Debian-derived versions of Linux
like Ubuntu and Mint. The become: yes part of
this task is to ensure that this command runs as
the superuser.

If youre not using a Debian-based distro,
you should probably omit the above task, and
replace apt with package which works on most
distros. There are also support for distro/lan-
guage/framework-specific package managers lik
eyum, zypper, pip, gem, npm and more.

What we also see is the declaration of one
variable, the code path. This is where we will keep
the source code. This allows us to write this path
once, and reuse it wherever else needed.

We can now quickly add two more tasks that
install the build tools and git:

- name: Install build tools
become: yes

apt: name=build-essential state=present

- name: Install git
become: yes

apt: name=git state=present

Here, we are providing two parameters, a
package name, and a state. This will result in

devworx> I January 2016 I www.devworx.in 73

these packages being installed if not already present. Now that our
software is installed and updated, lets get the kernel source code:

- name: Updating Linux Kernel source code
git: repo=https://github.com/torvalds/linux

dest=[[ code_path }]

This task is simple enough. We are using the git command, and
providing it a repository location and a destination to place the
source code. The magic of this task is that not only will it clone the
repository at the supplied destination the first time it is run, but it
will also keep it up-to-date during subsequent runs.

Note how were using the code_path variable to supply the code
path instead of writing that path all over again. Putting a variable
name in double curly braces will tell Ansible to place its value
there. We could likewise create a variable that points to the code
repository, which would allow easy switching between GitHub
and KerneL.org or yet another location.

Now we can combine all the rest of the build commands into
one task:

- name: Compiling kernel

shell: make mrproper && make def-
config && make -j4 && tarxz-pkg
chdir=([ code_path }]

This will launch the build process in a shell.

Unfortunately, the above command can be quite wasteful. If
we add the above command to our tasks it will run each time, and
end up recompiling the kernel even if there have been no updates.
It would be better if we could just run this task if the kernel has
been updated.

As it turns out, this is quite simple! All you need to do is to move
the compilation task out of the tasks list and into another section
called handlers. Then the git command can be configured to notify
the compile command, so it will only run if there is an update. Here
you can see the relevant bits code:

- hosts: localhost
tasks:

### Other tasks...

- name: Updating Linux Kernel source code

git: repo=https://github.com/torvalds/linux
dest=[[ code_path }}
notify:

- Compiling kernel
handlers:

- name: Compiling kernel
shell: make mrproper && make def-
config && make -j4 && make tarxz-pkg
chdir=([ code_path ]]

Now that the playbook is complete, you can run it with Ansible
as follows:

ansible-playbook build-kernel.yaml -i hosts -c local

Here -i hosts tells the ansible-playbook command to use the
inventory of hosts in a file called hosts in the directory in which
the command is being run. You may wish to change this if your
inventory file is elsewhere or namesd differently. The -c local bit
of the command is to be used if you want to run the commands on
your own local machine rather than over SSH. Remember to omit
that if you are using a remote server.

Here weve only looked at the apt, git and shell modules. Ansible
has hundreds of modules for everything from creating users, to
sending SMS notifications using Twilio. You can find out about
all the command modules included with Ansible here http://dgit.
in/AnsibLeDoc.

Conclusion

Using any configuration management tool at all is a HUGE advan-
tage over using none. Unlike some other tools it does not need
to be installed on the remote server. All it needs on the remote
server is Python 2, and in some cases not even that. It connects
to the remote server using simple SSH and transfers scripts that
run your tasks.

The initial process of learning how to create playbooks and
getting everything just right can be daunting, but once you have
a working playbook, setting up a server with everything up and
running becomes a matter of executing a single command>

You can find out more about Ansible at http://ansible.com

ANSIBLE TOWER

/ SYSTEM TRACKING
/ REMOTE COMMAND EXECUTION
/ SUPPORT FOR OPEN5TACK
/STREAMLINED U I

“Semaphore

»Semaphore is a free and open-
source alternative to Ansible Tower,
the commercial and expensive web
UI for Ansible

*YAML Syntax

»If you want a quick introduction
to YAML in the context of Ansible,
you can find it in Ansibles own
documentation here.

“Vagrant and Ansible

»If you use Vagrant then you'll
be glad to know that Vagrant and
Ansible work well together. Check
the documentation here.

lit.in/AnsVagrant

74 devworx> I January 2016 I www.devworx.in

Tried & Tested

Mini PCs

Tiny form factor computers are
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From Chromebooks to
low-powered Windows
alternatives, sub-20k small form
factor laptops are a resurgent
trend in the market. Are they
worth buying?

a.*1

I ’

-dSIK *

• •

Prasid Banerjee

prasid.banerjee@digit.in

T he push towards
mobile, shrinking
form factor devices
has been evident and
in full flow for a while now, but
no matter what the tech gurus of
the world say, laptops don’t seem

to be dying fast enough. New
developments take place all the
time though, and inexpensive
netbooks giving mobiles a run
for their money. With Google
pushing its Chromebooks more
aggressively in India, Windows
OEMs have suddenly taken to
building low cost, Chromebook
like laptops that seem to make a

lot of sense. These laptops cost
less than ^20,000 and rely
mostly on cloud storage for
functionality. And like anything
in India, when the price is low,
people are interested.

The question though
remains as to whether these
laptops are actually worth
spending money on. After all,

you don’t want to buy a device
simply because it doesn’t cost a
lot of money, only to find that
you made the wrong decision
buying what you bought. To
bring the pricing down, compa-
nies have had to make sacrifices
that may not suit a lot of users.
So, without further ado, here’s
how things stand.

HOW WE TESTED

R emember netbooks? Like
a phoenix rising from the
ashes, they refuse to die out.
These laptops are aimed at
bringing back the netbook
form factor, but with a more
mobile-like experience. So, we
tested them the same way. It’s
evident that these devices are
meant for the basic users, which
means functionality is limited.
We took one Chromebook (Xolo
Chromebook) and three Win-

dows 10-based devices, namely,
the Asus E402M, the Micromax
Canvas Lapbook and the Acer
Aspire ES 1.

We started out with two
trusted benchmarks in Sun-
spider and Browsermark.
Both these browser-based
benchmarks employ various
CSS, Javascript and other
tests to determine what kind
of browsing performance you
can expect from a particular

device. Given that these laptops
are cloud based and want to stay
connected all the time, this is an
important parameter.

Next, you’ll most likely be
browsing and watching movies
on these devices, which means
that the battery life is of utmost
importance. Here, we broke up
the battery life tests into two dif-
ferent parts. The first includes
testing the battery when you’re
simply playing a 1080p movie

local to the device. The second
test though is more important
and includes the time these lap-
tops can spend streaming videos
online. Given the low storage
space on these PCs, this matters.

We also tested the storage
I/O speeds, data transfer speeds,
and more. Further, we inspected
the keyboards, touchpads, dis-
plays and the overall design of
the devices to determine their
usability as well.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

□IDS

Laptops under ^20k

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PERFORMANCE

MICROMAX

LAPBOOK (?13,999)

XOLO (?9,999)

CHROMEBOOK

ACER ASPIRE

ES1-131 (?18,500)

ASUS EEEBOOK

E402MA (?16,990)

I f you scoffed at the fact the
Micromax is selling laptops,
then the Canvas Lapbook will
surprise you. While the device
is of course not a hardcore per-
former, it’ll suit basic users just
fine. In terms of general perfor-
mance, the Lapbook lets you
continuously stream videos
(between 480-720p) on it for
over six hours, which is good
for a laptop in this price range.
Even while playing videos from
the device’s hard drive, the
Lapbook can last for 6+ hours,
which means you can get quite
a bit of work done on the battery.

The Lapbook’s downfall, as
mentioned in the features sec-
tion is that it doesn’t come with
any additional storage offers. In
addition, the ASUS E402MA
can perform slightly better
than the Micromax Canvas
Lapbook and is much better
built. The area where the Lap-
book really lacks though is in
its display, which is sub-par to
say the least. Still worth consid-
ering for first time, basic users.

Benchmarks

T he XOLO Chromebook actu-
ally works quite smoothly
and offers battery life that
is better than the Micromax
Canvas Lapbook. The device
can go over eight hours when it
comes to native video playback,
while online streaming can be
done continuously for over
7.5 hours. In terms of battery
life, the XOLO Chromebook is
undoubtedly the best out of the
lot. At 10k, no other laptop that
can provide this kind of battery
life. If you’re simply browsing
and typing, this Chromebook
would even last for 10 hours.

The Chromebook’s weak-
ness though is in the fact that
it has no apps. While Chrome
OS isn’t the most difficult to
learn and understand, the app
support on Google’s Chrome
Web Store is really little right
now. The Chromebook fits the
bill for basic users, just like the
Micromax Canvas Lapbook,
but it needs a lot of work before
we can adopt the always-online
ecosystem of Google.

Benchmarks

T he Acer Aspire ESI lags
one too many times at basic
tasks, like clicking on Cortana
to search for something. Of
the four devices that we used,
this one lagged the most and
the fact that its keyboard is too
cramped made it quite painful to
use. While browsing on Google
Chrome, we could hardly multi-
task with a heavy website open
in some tab.

It’s actually quite sad, con-
sidering that the ESI is the only
laptop that gives the kind of
storage that we wish to have on
such devices. The 500GB HDD
and 100GB of Drive storage
would have been perfect for
users like us, but the ESl’s per-
formance isn’t quite up to the
mark. That, when combined
with the fact that the ESI also
costs nearly ^2k more than
the Asus E402MA, makes the
E402MA a better laptop to buy.

In addition, the laptop also
lacks in terms of battery life
when compared to the other
three that we chose.

Benchmarks

T he ASUS E402MA is defi-
nitely the best performer
amongst all of these laptops.
It costs less than the Acer
Aspire ESI and provides over
seven hours of battery life on
streaming. In addition, it’s dis-
play is also the best in terms of
contrast, colour reproduction
and other elements. The device
has a larger 14-inch display to
boot and is priced at only ^17k.
If you’re buying a laptop in
this price range, then chances
are you’ll appreciate the bigger
display and better build quality.

While the E402M does
have the same processor as the
Aspire Ell, it’s performance
is much better and the laptop
seems much more prepared for
Windows 10, which of course
comes out of the box on this
device. It doesn’t lag as much
and provides a comparatively
seamless usage experience. If
you have a budget above 15k,
but below 20k, then this is the
laptop that you should be going
for. Hands down!

Benchmarks

BrowserMark

1324

BrowserMark

2463

BrowserMark

510

BrowserMark

1037

Sunspider

914

Sunspider

658.4

Sunspider

889.6

Sunspider

800.3

Battery (Video)

6.6 hours

Battery (Video)

.8.3 hours

Battery (Video)

5.8 hours

Battery (Video)

7 hours

Battery (Streaming)

6.5 hours

Battery (Streaming)

7.5 hours

Battery (Streaming)

5.2 hours

Battery (Streaming)

6 hours

Screen Quality

7/10

Screen Quality

6.2/10

Screen Quality

6.2/10

Screen Quality

7.4/10

File copy

274 sec

File copy

230 sec

File copy

61 sec

File copy

144 sec

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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integrations from all the acquisitions it had made.

http://dgit.in/YahooMsg Laptops under ?20k

FEATURES

MICROMAX

LAPBOOK

T he Canvas Lapbook has two
USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI
port, a 3.5mm headphone jack
and a micro-SD slot. Like most
others in this price range, the
laptop has 32GB of internal
storage (19GB usable), but is
expandable to only 64GB using
the micro-SD card slot.

The Lapbook runs on an
Intel Atom Z3735F quad-core
processor, clocked at 1.83 GHz
and has 2GB of DDR3 RAM. It
has an 11.6 inch HD (1366x768p)
IPS display, but the viewing
angles are still quite poor for an
IPS panel. There’s also a VGA
camera on the device.

What the Lapbook lacks
is additional cloud storage.
You can of course use One-
Drive, Dropbox and any other
cloud service that you want
to, but there’s no additional
free cloud storage with this
device, a downer for a laptop
that is basically a Chromebook
that runs on Windows. This
device doesn’t have enough of
a unique appeal in its features.

Specifications

Display 11.6-inch, 1366x768 IPS

CPU 1.8 GHz Intel Atom Z3735F

RAM 2GBDDR3

OS Windows 10

Ports USB 2.0, HDMI, micro-SD

Weight 1.3 Kg

XOLO

CHROMEBOOK

B uying a XOLO Chromebook
on the other hand provides
you with 100GB of free Google
Drive storage, which you can
use for documents, movies,
sheets and more. Unfortunately
though, 16GB of internal storage
on the XOLO Chromebook is
abysmal. It’s also only expand-
able to 64GB using the micro-SD
card slot.

Like the Lapbook, the Xolo
Chromebook also has two
USB ports and an HDMI port,
accompanied by the 3.5mm
headphone jack. It runs on
a 1.8GHz Rockchip RK3288
quad-core processor along with
2GB of DDR3 RAM. Unlike the
Lapbook though, the camera
here lands at 1 megapixel,
which may matter to some.

It goes without saying
though, that the XOLO
Chromebook depends on
Google Services, which means
if you’re not a fan of those, stay
away. Another problem with
the OS is the scarcity of apps
that matter.

Specifications

Display 11.6-inch, 1366x768 IPS

CPU 1.8GHz Rockchip RK3288

RAM 2GBDDR3

OS Chrome OS

Ports USB 2.0, HDMI, micro-SD

Weight 1.5 Kg

ACER ASPIRE
ES1-131

I f you want big storage options
in this price range, then the
500GB HDD on the Acer Aspire
ESI is probably the only choice
for you. There’s also 100GB of
Drive storage to boot. In addi-
tion, the device has an SD card
slot, one USB 3.0 and one USB
2.0 port, an HDMI port and even
a LAN port on the back. The dis-
play of course stands at 11.6 inch
1377x768p HD display, like the
others in this comparison.

While all that is definitely
good for the Aspire ESI, the
device runs on a 2.16GHz dual-
core Intel Celeron N2840 pro-
cessor and 2GB DDR3 RAM
and it doesn’t perform as well
as the others. In addition, the
device has a comparatively
small 2670 mAh battery and
that hurts it quite a bit.

The Acer Aspire ESI is also
the most expensive amongst
the device in this price range.
The device costs around
^18.5k, which is more than all
of the other laptops used in
this comparison.

Specifications

Display 11.6-inch, 1366x768 IPS

CPU. .1.6 GHz Intel Celeron N2840

RAM 2GBDDR3

OS Windows 10

Ports.. USB 3.0, 2.0, HDMI, SD Card
Weight 1.2 Kg

ASUS EEEBOOK
E402MA

T he E402MA once again
is quite impressive in this
department. While the device
has the same processor and
RAM as the Acer Aspire Ell,
it performs better. In addition,
ASUS has packed in 25GB of
storage on Dropbox and its own
ASUS WebStorage facility into
the laptop. Combined with your
own Google Drive and OneDrive
storages, it makes for a pretty
tidy cloud support option.

In addition, the E402M
has a 14-inch HD (1366x768
pixel) display, which makes
it better for watching movies,
browsing and other activities.
The display though is not the
best when it comes to viewing
angles. It also has one USB 2.0,
USB 3.0 port each, like the Acer
device, and more I/O ports.

Of course, the ASUS
E402MA’s strength is in
the fact that it has a larger
display than the others, while
being cheaper than the Aspire
ESI, at ^17k. A win-win on
both counts.

Specifications

Display 14-inch, 1366x768 IPS

CPU. 2.16 GHz Intel Celeron N2840

RAM 2GBDDR3

OS Windows 10

Ports.. USB 3.0, 2.0, HDMI, SD Card
Weight 1.45 Kg

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Laptops under ^20k

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DESIGN

MICROMAX

LAPBOOK

T he Lapbook looks quite
pedestrian, which many
may not like. It weighs 1.3kg,
which may be a tad heavy for
some, but its small size makes
the device quite easy to carry
about. Considering the fact that
none of its competitors are much
lighter, we don’t quite hold the
weight against this device.

The laptop is built sturdily,
with no creaks anywhere. But
the plastic body feels much less
premium than most others pre-
sent in the lineup.

XOLO

CHROMEBOOK

A s a budget product, the
matte plastic on this laptop
looks quite good, but raise the
lid and you see a glossy plastic
panel around the keyboard,
which is prone to both smudges
and dust. The glossy plastic
inside is really a downer.

The XOLO Chromebook’s
keyboard though is not meant
for long term usage. In our unit,
the keys make that creaking
sound often and hamper the
typing experience. The keys are
also wobbly.

ACER ASPIRE
ES1-131

T his device carries a really
old school design, which
some may like, but it looks dated
today. It’s also thicker than the
other three laptops in this com-
parison. This in turn makes the
device feel bulkier, even though
it weighs 1.2 kg, pretty much the
same as the XOLO Chrome-
book (1.5 kg) and the Micromax
Canvas Lapbook.

The use of plastic also con-
tinues here and the ESI actu-
ally feels somewhat like the
XOLO device.

ASUS EEEBOOK
E402MA

A mongst the laptops in this
comparison, the E402MA
is by far the best looking and
best designed of the lot. So much
so that we don’t mind the bigger
size and footprint. Of course, the
fact that the device has a 14 inch
display plays a big role in that.

The E402M though makes
the right use of plastic. It’s
slightly heavy, but its metallic
finish makes the laptop look
much more premium than any
of its competitors. Its full-sized
keyboard aids typing.

VERDICT

T he ASUS EeeBook E402MA
is the undeniable Best Per-
former of this bunch, while the
Xolo Chromebook bags the Best

Buy Award. Having said that,
while our tests do show that
the Asus E402MA is the best
performer amongst the lap-

tops that we tested, the answer
to the question we asked at
the beginning remains. Does
it make sense to spend on

PROS

• Good performance

• Good Looks and build

• Cloud backup

• Screen quality

• Keyboard and touchpad

CONS:

• Large size

PROS:

• Battery life

• Built-in Google services

• Cloud backup

• Inexpensive

CONS:

• Restrictive OS

• Not enough apps

PROS:

• USB 3.0, features

• Lightweight

• Fast-paced, large hard drive

• Cloud backup

CONS:

• Battery Life

• Look and feel

these laptops or would you
make a better investment
buying a slightly more expen-
sive laptop with more features
and better performance?

The ASUS E402MA, which
is the best performer in this
test, still lags in the face of tra-
ditional laptops. All of the lap-
tops in the test feel like devices
that were meant to be tablets,
but have been modified to meet
user demands. Yes, your par-
ents, who perhaps only use the
laptop for browsing online, will
find these useful, but for most
of us, it makes more sense to
invest in a slightly more expen-
sive laptop, that lasts longer and
performs much better. E3

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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Mini PCs

THERE'S A MIN l -PC FOR
EVERYONE AND WE TAKE A
LOOK AT SOME OF THE BEST
ONES IN THE MARKET.

Mithun Mohandas

mithun.mohandas@digit.in

T he Mini-PC market
is slowly saturating
with devices of every
size and feature set
within the domain that would
qualify them as a Mini-PC.
You have the credit card sized
ones like the LIVA Core from
ECS which are powered by an

Intel Core M 5Y10c and, on the
the other end of the spectrum
you have the ZOTAC Magnus
EN970 which has an Intel
Core i5 - 5200U making it a lot
more powerful. However, put-
ting both of them in the same
bucket is a little unfair on the
little ones. After all, they put
a lot more effort in squeezing
in all the components within
a smaller footprint. So we

decided to class them apart.
We’ll be taking a closer look
at the ZOTAC Magnus EN970
and the ASUS GR8 which
occupy about four times the
volume, and thereby, can
squeeze in a lot more powerful
components. Also, comparing a
machine that costs ^9,000 with
another that costs ^80,000 is
not only unfair but also out-
right silly.

This leaves us with the
ASRock Beebox, MSI Cubi, ECS
LIVA Core and the Gigabyte GB-
BXi5H-5200. All four are small
form factor machines with a
variety of hardware for all kinds
of usage scenarios. While this
isn’t an exhaustive comparison,
you should be able to find some
connect between the specifica-
tions of one of the competitors
with what you hope to buy.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Mini PCs

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FEATURES AND BUILD QUALITY

GIGABYTE

Brix GB-BXi5H-5200

Price - ?27,299

ECS

LIVA Core

Price - ?34,499

MSI

Cubi 008-BEU

Price - ^8,500

ASROCK

Beebox N3150

Price - ?9,649

S urely the Mini-PC with the
beefiest hardware among all
the competitors in this test. The
Gigabyte Brix GB-BXi5H-5200
is powered by an Intel Core i5
5200U which is commonly used
in laptops. The 15 W Broadwell
processor is not only clocked at
the highest among all, but the on-
chip IGP is also the highest clocked
with the most number of execution
units. It also happens to be one of
the two Mini-PCs in this compar-
ison with 4K playback capability.

It has a sleek exterior and
is relatively heavier once fully
setup but not too much to be an
inconvenience. On the inside,
the construction is a testament
to the durability that Gigabyte
has been known for. Moreover,
the components are well spaced
and, the HDD and the CPU are
well ventilated.

Specifications

CPU Intel Core i5 5200U

GPU Intel HD 5500

RAM 16 GB (Not included)

Storage (Not included)

Audio ALC283

OS (Not included)

Weight 0.50 Kg

USB 4x USB 3.0

LAN Gigabit Ethernet

Misc Display Port

T erribly close on the heels of the
LIVA X comes the LIVA Core.
ECS has maintained the same
build quality with the LIVA Core
as was the case with the LIVA X.
It has the second most powerful
processor in this comparison
test and an equally powerful IGP
to go with it. Moreover, it offers
more value for money since it
comes pre-loaded with an Intel
535 series 120 GB M.2 SSD and
RAM. This does allow for greater
quality control and removing user
intervention from the equation is
a plus point for those who want a
plug and play device.

The body is made out of one
solid piece of metal and it scores
high in the looks department.
Another plus point is that it has
a massive heatsink that gels well
with its external appearance. It is
essentially, one huge heatsink.

Specifications

CPU Intel Core M-5Y10C

GPU Intel HD 5300

RAM 4 GB

Storage Intel 535 120 GB SSD

Audio On board

OS (Not included)

Weight 0.58 Kg

USB 4x USB 3.0

LAN Gigabit Ethernet

Misc MicroSD Card slot

A nd with the MSI Cubi, we’re
looking at an entirely dif-
ferent price segment. This is the
sub-lOK range entry level range.
Most devices in this bracket are
barebones and have a ULP SoC
at their heart. In this case, the
MSI Cubi has an Intel Celeron
N3205U and the on-chip IGP
isn’t spectacular. But these
devices weren’t meant for an all
round usage scenario. It’s mostly
office work and media consump-
tion that suit this device.

When it come to build quality,
one would assume that there will
be certain compromises made.
While it doesn’t match up to the
LIVA Core, it isn’t flimsy by any
means. The chassis is made out
of plastic and metal. The extra
base plate is a welcome addition
and PCB on the inside is easy to
remove and clean.

Specifications

CPU Intel Celeron N3205U

GPU Intel HD Graphics

RAM 16 GB (Not included)

Storage (Not included)

Audio On board

OS (Not included)

Weight 0.58 Kg

USB 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 3.1

LAN Realtek 8111G Gigabit

Misc... Multiple base plates, Mini-DP

R ight behind the MSI Cubi
is the ASRock Beebox pow-
ered by the Intel Celeron N3150.
This quad- core Braswell SoC is
clocked slightly higher than the
Cubi’s 3205U and that gives it a
slight advantage. This particular
Beebox is the only one with a USB
Type-C port and has 2 HDMI and
a Display port. This makes it
the only unit capable of running
three displays simultaneously.
Also, this was the only model that
came with a media centre remote
which made it a little more of an
attractive HTPC option.

Like the Cubi, the Beebox
also makes use of a plastic
and metal combination for the
chassis. And disassembly is
quite simple as well. Scratches
on the light coloured chassis are
really visible but then again, you
can opt for a darker shade.

Specifications

CPU Intel Celeron N3150

GPU Intel HD Graphics

RAM 16 GB (Not included)

Storage (Not included)

Audio ALC283

OS (Not included)

Weight 0.58 Kg

USB 4x USB 3.0

LAN Realtek 8111GR Gigabit

Misc USB Type-C, Display Port

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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Mini PCs

PERFORMANCE

GIGABYTE ECS

Brix GB-BXi5H-5200 LIVA Core

MSI

Cubi 008-BEU

ASROCK

Beebox N3150

W hen you to make a tran-
sition from a laptop or a
more powerful form factor, you’d
feel at home with the Gigabyte
Brix. The Intel Core i5 5200U
pretty much aces all the bench-
marks with this particular unit
scoring the highest in all bench-
marks. The on-chip IGP is suf-
ficiently powerful to crunch out
approximately 30 FPS in quite a
few games with minimal reduc-
tion of graphics settings.

While the device isn’t made
for hard-core gaming like the
MAGNUS EN970 and the ASUS
GR8, you still can get away with
a fair amount of gaming.

All units compared in this
test use the same Intel 3160NGW
802.11ac Wi-Fi module, so a
performance difference in that
aspect is out of the question. All
that’s missing is a USB 3.1 con-
nector and this’d be untouchable.

Benchmarks

PCMark8 Home 3049

PCMark8 Creative 3535

PCMark8 Work 4016

3DMark Cloud

Gate 5345

3DMark Sky Diver 2864

Cinebench 15 28.03 FPS

WinRaR 3854 KB/s

Unigine Heaven 245 FPS

RE6 Score 2183

A nd then there’s the ECS LIVA
Core which turned out to be
the second highest performer in
the comparison test. The Core
M-5Y10c is slightly older than
what the competing products are
powered by but it is also the one
with the lowest TDP making the
LIVA Core relatively cooler. This
is why it’s the only one using pas-
sive cooling effectively. And less
moving parts bodes well since
the LIVA Core is a little difficult
to disassemble.

The Intel Core M 5Y10c’s HD
5300 being a generation older
doesn’t perform as well as the
rest so it ended up scoring the
least in all gaming benchmarks.
Overall, it more than compen-
sates for this by scoring second
highest in all computing bench-
marks. The Intel 535 Series 120
GB SSD gives it one of the best
storage characteristics as well.

Benchmarks

PCMark8 Home 2194

PCMark8 Creative 1003

PCMark8 Work 3343

3DMark Cloud

Gate 2229

3DMark Sky Diver 1069

Cinebench 15 12.89 FPS

WinRaR 2514 KB/s

Unigine Heaven 46 FPS

RE6 Score 912

R egrettably, this particular
CUBI scores the least in our
compute benchmarks but that
doesn’t make it a bad investment.
It is designed for office produc-
tivity and casual multimedia
consumption. And it performs
these tasks without any hiccups.

It’s gaming performance can
be said to be a glimmer of sun-
shine as it does perform better
than the LIVA Core and hap-
pens to be the second highest
performer overall in graphics
benchmarks. So if you turn down
the graphics settings all the way
down, then you can manage
playable FPS rates.

Internally, it’s cooling capa-
bilities also happen to shine
through. It has an active heat-
sink with a dedicated heat-pipe
which helps bring down tem-
peratures after bursts of high
performance runs.

Benchmarks

PCMark8 Home 1482

PCMark8 Creative 1604

PCMark8 Work 2832

3DMark Cloud

Gate 2638

3DMark Sky Diver 1617

Cinebench 15 19.95 FPS

WinRaR 1583 KB/s

Unigine Heaven FPS

RE6 Score 1380

S tanding out from the crowd
for implementing features
that are very premium in an
economy segment price bracket
is the Beebox N3150. However,
in an attempt to be the jack of all
trades - which it is - it takes a few
steps back in almost all depart-
ments. It’s compute performance
pegs it at third position in this
comparison and its graphics per-
formance pegs it at third as well.

Casual gaming is all you
should expect from the Beebox
N3150. But like we said, it has
managed to squeeze in 4K play-
back on one display or power
three separate displays simulta-
neously. Overall, its performance
is just a little ahead of the MSI
Cubi but with the amount of
features that ASRock have man-
aged to pack in, the Beebox does
manage to be the jack of all trades
in this comparison.

Benchmarks

PCMark8 Home 1684

PCMark8 Creative 1884

PCMark8 Work 1323

3DMark Cloud

Gate 2266

3DMark Sky Diver 1222

Cinebench 15 14.17 FPS

WinRaR 1564 KB/s

Unigine Heaven 85 FPS

RE6 Score 985

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Mini PCs

e-Vigilante

Redditors helped track down a John Doe
case which was open for over 20 years!

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Ghar pe Dolby hai kya?

Dolby releases its new India specific ‘mockumentary’
that aims to educate elaborating various sound
qualities in an interesting way http://dgit.in/DolbyAd

HOW WE TESTED

I nitial setup: All Mini-PCs
were assembled and the same
hardware was used where ever
possible. We used Kingston’s
Impact RAM clocked at the
highest any Mini-PC would
allow. The DIMMs themselves
were capable of going all the
way to 1866 MHz. For the SSD
we used the ZOTAC Premium
Edition 240 GB so as to maintain
a level playing field. The LIVA
Core comes pre-installed with
an Intel 535 Series M.2 SSD, so
we let that be. We then installed
Windows 10, all drivers and
essential software along with
the requisite benchmarking
software were installed. We

then proceeded to install all
Windows updates and set the
Windows Power Plan to a custom
High-Performance preset.

During the assembly phase,
we took at look at the internals
to assess the build quality of
each competitor.

Performance tests: Our
benchmark software suite
consists mostly of industry
standard tools like PCMark8,
3DMark 8, Cinebench, POVRay
etc. We also throw in a few
storage benchmarks, like ATTO
and WinRaR. While we did
use the same hardware for
all Mini-PCs, the storage test
was basically used to re-affirm

that the assembly was done
and all storage devices were
performing equally across
all Mini-PCs.

Features score: The fea-
tures that were unique to each
Mini-PC garnered it the same
weightage as any other. This
ensures that having something
unique did not propel any device
to such an extent that the others
couldn’t catch up.

Build quality: The metrics
that we observe are largely
based on what we’ve seen before
and that makes build quality a
subjective score. However, the
parameters are still based on
common sense.

Final score: The final score
that we arrive at in the perfor-
mance tests is what decides
which Mini-PC becomes the
Best Performer.

The feature score is used to
aid in picking the best buy, so
the device with the highest per-
formance/rupee ratio clubbed
with the feature score gets to be
the Best Buy.

The Editor’s Pick is awarded
to whichever device that we
feel has narrowly missed out
on either the Best Performer or
the Best Buy. This does make it
a little subjective but the scoring
mechanism is largely rooted in
how the device scores overall.

VERDICT

T he Best Performer Award
goes to the Gigabyte Brix
GB-BXi5H-5200. It really was
the processor that pushed this
little beast ahead of the compe-
tition. Club that with a really
good build quality and you’ve
got a winning formula. This
does come at a price through,

Beebox N3150

Price - ?9,649

PROS:

• Value for money

• Multimedia Remote

• USB Type-C

CONS:

• Moderate build quality

• Glossy finish prone to scratches

and you need to pay a lot more if
you want to the RAM and hard
drive included. Swapping it out
for an SSD to get the extra edge
pushes the cost ever further into
the mid 40K. But you really do
get your money’s worth of per-
formance with the Gigabyte Brix
GB-BXi5H-5200.

GIGABYTE

Brix GB-BXi5|^5200

Price - ?27,299

PROS:

• High performing CPU

• Moderately clocked IGP

• Actively cooled heat-sink

CONS:

• Could have better
placement of ports

The Best Buy Award goes to
the ASRock Beebox N3150.
This nifty little device packs in
top of the mill features in the
budget category which makes
it an attractive option. The fact
that it performs quite well for
the tasks that it was designed to
only works in its favour. For less

ECS

tlVA Core

Price - ?34,499

PROS:

• Low power SoC

• Excellent build quality

• Effective passive heatsink

CONS:

• Low graphics performance

• Lack of availability

than ^10,000 there can hardly
be a better option. However, the
MSI Cubi which very narrowly
missed out on this award is also
equally good and a little cheaper.
So if three display connectors
and a USB Type-C don’t tickle
your fancy, you best go with the
MSI Cubi.

The Editor’s Pick Award
goes to the ECS LIVA Core
and that too for quite a lot of
reasons. Firstly, none of the
others come anywhere close in
terms of build quality. And it’s
process is the second best per-
forming in our test so you aren’t
exactly making a compromise
there either. And it even has a
MicroSD slot and a high current
always on USB 3.0 port makes it
an all-rounder of sorts.

While this was a fairly small
comparison, the Mini-PC cat-
egory is bursting at the seams
and you’ll soon see a lot more
reviews coming your way in the
coming months. El

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

NOW IN HINDI

www.aigit.in/ni

www.facebook.com/digithindi

, nij

®i i^B;

jLrtT" ■

■ E22*

icnr I

p ™ irt ifcft ^ 1

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INSIDE

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THE LATEST PRODUCTS
REVIEWED FOR YOU

The Digit Test Centre receives hundreds of products
every month. Each of these products is put through
a series of tests and is finally given a score. The
final score is arrived at after considering a number
of factors and evaluating them in terms of features,
performance, value for money, build quality, and, in
the case of software, even ease of use.

For better understanding of our ratings, here’s a
quick guide to our overall score

0to©

Extremely poor product.

Keep away!

Strictly OK.

Not recommended

Decent product.

Go for it, but there may be better products out there.

O
+- >

Very good product.

Highly recommended.

1 9i j to r i°oj

Ground-breaking product.

We’ve never seen anything like it before.
A definite must buy!

Page 86 ►

ASUS ZenPad 7.0

Page 88 ▲

ECS Z170 Claymore

▲ Page 89

Videocon 40-inch
DDBTV

▲ Page 90

ZOTAC 240 GB
Premium Edition

A Page 91

Kingston Impact
SODIMM RAM

& M 0 R E . . .

INTERACTIVE

REVIEWS INSIDE! \[M

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Firefox for iOS. http://dgit.in/MozillaFocus

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Sony RXioo IV

The tiny imaging legend

T he Sony RXIOO IV presently itself as one
of the smallest compact cameras, with
extensive manual controls and great image
quality It is made of good quality metal,
with a single rubber thumbstrip. Buttons are neatly
laid out, and the concealment of the electronic view-
finder and the flash module are well thought out. It
is light, and coupled with wrist suspender hooks,
should take care of no hand grip on the body

It has a new 1-inch Exmor RS sensor, maximum
continuous shooting rate has increased to 16fps, and
the electronic shutter can shoot at upto 1/32000 sec-
onds. Another notable upgrade over previous gen-
erations is 4K video shooting. The NP-BX1 battery
pack, with battery stamina of 1240mAh, is rated to
last for 280 shots. The electronic viewfinder now
has a resolution of 2.36 million pixels, in place of
1.44 million pixels on RXIOO III. The Sony RXIOO
IV does not feature a hot shoe that was last seen
on the RXIOO Mark II, owing to the built-in flash
module and the pop-up electronic viewfinder. The
Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70mm f/1.8 lens remains
the same - and is great. It has a limited range which
may pose a few problems, but is compact, and fast.

The electronic viewfinder on the RXIOO IV is
sharp, accurate, and shifts actively between the live
view display and itself, with the help of a proximity
sensor. In terms of shooting capabilities, the RXIOO
does miss the power of interchangeable lenses
that compact-body mirrorless cameras have, but
within the compact shell, provides complete manual
control over photographs. Focusing manually is
smooth with the EVF, and while the autofocus
mechanism works when the subject is in extreme
closeup range, it fails to lock focus, even when the
subject is stationary.

Shutter speeds range from 30” to 1/2000”
(mechanical) and 1/32000 (electronic). The lens
ranges between f/1.8 to f/11. At f/1.8, images have a
certain amount of distortion, and at f/11, there is sof-
tening on the edges because of light leaking through
the iris. However, the 1-inch Exmor RS sensor in this
tiny device makes it one of the best, or possibly the
best compact camera available today. Images in day-
light, overcast and indoor (tungsten and fluorescent)
look sharp and crisp, and render true-to-source
colours while preserving contrast and brightness
levels. At dawn or dusk, or while shooting into the
light, its excellent dynamic range gets you more
details, and good balance of light and shadows.

Shooting at objects in shadow with a singular light
source in the background gives good levels of detail
on the subject, and light sources do not appear
overpowering or harsh. This is also useful when you

shoot in harsh sunlight, where the shadows in trees
or buildings are not completely darkened.

The 4K video recording is smooth, noise levels
are reasonably low even at ISO levels of upto 1250,
meaning that you can actually use it to shoot videos
in poorly-lit situations. The autofocus mechanism
does pose a problem here, and I found myself
focusing manually more often, which might be a
slight deterrent in an otherwise excellent camera
which literally fits into trouser pockets. The tiltable
LCD display is another benefit, although the pres-
ence of touchscreen and the ability to swivel it
would have made it even better.

All of this, however, comes at the expense of
one thing - battery. The 1240mAh battery pack is
weaker than what the Sony RXIOO Mark III had,
and on regular usage, you will need to charge it
halfway through third day of shooting. Approxi-
mately, that is about 180 photographs, and 12
minutes of 1080p videos - something that is a major
letdown for a pocket device that is otherwise ideal to
take around, wherever you go.

The Sony RXIOO Mark IV is one of the best com-
pact cameras made till date, providing full manual
control and good dynamic range, thus making it a
very versatile camera. However, the lack of touch-
screen input and a mis-functioning autofocus
mechanism means that it has its limitations. The
asking price may seem steep, but for such a compact
device with great image quality, the RXIOO IV
makes absolute sense.

Souvik Das

Features 78

Design 84

Performance 90

Value 60

Specifications

Resolution: 20.1 million
effective pixels, Sensor size
and type: 1.0-type (13.2 mm
x 8.8 mm) Exmor RS CMOS
sensor, aspect ratio 3:2,
Lens: ZEISS® Vario-Sonnar
T* lens, 10 elements in
9 groups (9 aspherical
elements including AA
lens), Image processor:
BIONZX, Viewfinder:

3-inch Xtra Fine TFT LCD,
electronic viewfinder,
Shutter speed: 1/32000"
to 30", ISO: 100-12800,
Weight: 271 grams (body
only), Connectivity: WiFi

Contact

Sony India

Phone:1800-103-7799
Email: https://www.sony.
co.in/section/contactus
Website: www.sony.co.in

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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Angry Birds CEO steps down

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Smart Lockers for packages

QikPod now allows you to collect your packages
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ASUS ZenPad 7.0
(Z370CG)

Not what we’d expect from the
makers of a Nexus Tablet

he build of ZenPad
7 is the same that
we have seen on
other tablets - thick
borders surrounding the
display. There are no physical
navigation buttons on the
face of the device. The tablet
has the ability to make calls
and the call quality from the
tablet is good. It also has an
audio cover that boasts of

Features 72

Performance 58

Design 67

Value 44

Specifications

Display: 7-inch WXGA display with
a 1280x800p resolution; CPU: Intel
Atom x3-C3230 Quad-Core, 64bit;
RAM: 2GB LPDDR3; Storage: 16GB
built-in expandable via a microSD
card; Camera: 8MP rear and 2MP
front; Battery: 3450mAh battery;
Weight: 272 grams

Contact

ASUS India

Phone:1800-2090365

E-Mail: https://vip.asus.com/VIP2/

Services/QuestionForm?lang=en-in

Dolby DTS sound. Sticking
with the audio cover, there is
only one position in which
you can prop the tablet so
if you are sitting outdoors
and there is direct glare on
the device, you will have to
change your position rather
than that of the tablet. The
viewing angles of the tablet
display itself are good. For
what it boasts, the quality of
sound from the audio cover
isn’t great. When it comes
to gaming, the display looks
washed out and pixelated in
the case of Asphalt 8. Graphi-
cally intensive games aren’t a
great experience on the tablet.
ASUS has its own UI skinned
over Android. An interesting
feature of the UI is that it auto
arranges the apps you down-
load into folders if you wish it
to do so. Coming to the battery
life, the tablet ran for about 6.5
hours in our continuous video
playback test. If you are in the
market to pick up a tablet for
12K and don’t mind compro-
mising on calling capability
you can take a look at the
Xiaomi Mi Pad which is an
overall better performer.

Sameer Mitha

Micromax Canvas
Xpress 4G

Is the addition of 4G enough?

T he build of the

smartphone is good
especially when you
compare it to other
smartphones in the same price
bracket. The curved back feels
good and the dark blue colour
is attractive. The display has
good viewing angles. The
downside is that the colour
reproduction isn’t the
best especially when
you place the Canvas
Xpress 4G next to
the Acer Liquid Z530.

The UI on the phone is
lightly skinned just like the
ones we have seen on other
Micromax smartphones.

For everyday use the phone
worked just fine. The call
quality was good at both
ends. There is a little audio
leak from the earpiece at full
volume, but I think this could
also be because the person I

S3*

Features 78

Performance 52

Design 68

Value 50

Specifications

Display: 5-inch 720P display;
Processor: 1GHz MediaTek
MTK6735P quad-core processor;
RAM: 2GB RAM; Storage: 16GB
built-in expandable via a MicroSD
card; Camera: 8MP rear and 5MP
front; Battery: 2000mAh

Contact

Micromax India

Phone: 1860 500 8286

Email: info@micromaxinfo.com

was speaking to was yelling.
The speaker is positioned at
the back of the phone, which
isn’t ideal if you place it face
up on a table and listen to
music. Most games run well,
but graphically intensive
games will suffer on the
device. The battery life the
smartphone lasted for about
7 hours in the GeekBench
Battery test. The rear camera
of the device is average and
works if you want to post them
on social networking websites.

If you are in the market
to pick up a smartphone
under 7k, there are a lot of
options available that give the
Micromax Canvas Xpress 4G a
run for its money.

Sameer Mitha

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

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An Australian startup allows you to send anyone
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One Ring to find them...

Adidas has created a pair of 3D printed
shoes made with plastic from Ocean Waste.

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Bazaar

YU Yutopia

Not quite the utopian wonder

T here are few phones
in the market that can
come close to beating
the OnePlus 2 when it
comes to the performance to price
factor and the YU Yutopia is one
of them. The recently launched,
self proclaimed, “most powerful
smartphone ever”, has a Snap-
dragon 810 SoC and 4GB RAM,
along with a 21MP rear camera,

5.2 inch QHD display and a fin-
gerprint sensor on the back.

The Yutopia’s is made com-
pletely out of metal, but it isn’t the
same build quality that you see
on HTC and Apple phones. The
metallic body feels good, but is
prone to dents with the first fall.

In addition, the Yutopia’s design
makes it bigger than it needs to
be. While the phone has a 0.3 inch
smaller display than the OnePlus
2, it’s dimensions are almost the
same. The Yutopia is wide, making it quite
unweildy, while the metal body is somewhat
slippery as well. It’s a good looking phone, but not
one that’s easy to manage with one hand.

The main issue with the Yutopia though is the
buggy UI. Factory shipped software should never
carry drastic bugs, but the Yutopia’s software is
riddled with bugs. At one point, our review unit
developed an yellowish tint on the display after we
used the Adaptive Display mode. It took a factory
reset to solve the issue, leading us to re-download
about 15 GB of music, apps and games. There were
quite a few other noticeable bugs too, making the
phone quite frustrating to use at time.

In addition, the software is also not as well opti-
mised as the OnePlus 2. While the two phones may
carry the same SoC, the Yutopia is not as powerful
as the OnePlus 2 when it comes to graphics per-
formance. Fro regular apps etc. though the phone
is quite capable of handling them, albeit with bugs
popping in here and there. Aggressive thermal
control algorithms make the phone’s performance
in gaming and other such activities lesser than the
OnePlus 2, but it’s capable of keeping the Snap-
dragon 810 from heating up abnormally. The hero
of the phone is the 21MP camera on the back, which

though a tad slow to focus, takes
really good images. The Yutopia’s
camera desaturates colours in
some situations, but mostly takes
really nice and sharp images. The
camera is especially good at noise
reduction in low light conditions
and delivers quite bright images
in such conditions.

Speaking of good things, the
new Around Yu feature is well
done. Yu has added a screen on
the device, similar to Google Now,
OnePlus’ Shelf screen and HTC’s
Blinkfeed. Instead of showing
contacts, social networks etc.
however, this screen shows a col-
lection of services, ranging from
flight bookings to food, cabs and
more. It’s quite useful, but needs
a lot of work from Yu, to take it to
its full potential.

The 5.2 inch QHD display on
the Yutopia gives it a big advan-
tage over both the OnePlus 2 and Honor 7’s
display. Coming’s Concore Gorilla Glass makes
the display really sharp and vivid, while also adding
to the touch experience. The trade-off however is that
the Yutopia’s display is dim compared to flagship
smartphones today.

The battery on the Yutopia is also at the industry
average today. The phone can last a power user about
7-8 hours, while more basic users will be able to
churn about 12 hours out of the battery.

Lastly, the Little Bird in-ear headphones from
House of Marley, come out of the box with this
smartphone. The headphones are quite bass heavy
and don’t do well with the mids and details. If you
don’t mind spending an extra ^600, the Cowon
EMls can do a better job than the Little Birds.

Overall, the Yu Yutopia is definitely one of the
better phones in the market today. That said, it’s
hard to recommend a phone that has so many bugs
out of the box. If you’re fine with trusting Yu to fix
the bugs through OTA updates then the Yutopia isn’t
a bad buy at all, but while the OnePlus 2 is a more
powerful device, the Honor 7 is comparable and
much more stable. The Yu Yutopia is a good phone,
but just like the OnePlus 2, it isn’t a flagship killer.

Prasid Banerjee

Features 91

Performance 82

Value 66

Design 76

Specifications

Display: 5.2 inch QHD;
Processor: Qualcomm
Snapdragon 810; RAM: 4GB;
Storage: 32GB, expandable
to 128GB; Camera: 21MP
rear, 8MP front; Battery:
3000 mAh

Contact

Phone:1860-212-2122
Email: NA

Website: http://www.
yuplaygod.com

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Bazaar

1 billion free stuff

Creative Commons has revealed that it has
more than 1 billion works free for use.

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“October 21st, 2015”

The iconic jacket worn by Marty McFly in Back
to the Future 2 is up for sale in an auction.

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ECS Z170
Claymore

An inexpensive Z170 Gaming
motherboard

H ere’s
a Z170

motherboard
you’d want to
consider when upgrading
to Skylake. The board itself
carries a matte black and
gold colour scheme which is
very close to what ASRock
and ASUS have in its price
segment. The components
seems quite well dispersed
with plenty of space between
components. The Z170 Clay-
more packs in a few premium
features that are would ordi-
narily set prices skyrocketing

Features 70

Build 75

Value for Money 75

Specifications

Chipset: Intel Z170; Memory
support: 4x3200(0C)MHz upto
64GB; LAN: Realtek Dragon
8118AS Gigabit Ethernet: Audio:
Realtek ALC1150; SATA: 4x SATA III;
Expansion: 5x PCIe XI 6(x1 6/x4/x0/
xl/x4); Dimensions (LxWxD): 305
mm x 244 mm; Warranty: 3 years.

Contact

Elitegroup Computer Systems
Co. Ltd.

Phone:+91-9820357713,

Email: bhattrajshekhar@ecs.com.tw
Website: www.ecs.com.tw

with most
brands. For
example, it has five
PCIe slots which aren’t
all rated for xl6 but will run
in either xl6/x4/xO/xl/x4 or
x8/x4/x8/xl/x4 configuration
which is sufficient for 2 -way
SLI and 3-way CrossFireX but
this isn’t certified for SLI. This
wasn’t a problem a while back
as you could use HyperSLI to
trick your motherboard, but
that project is no longer active.

Other features include a
BIOS debug LED and a new
ethernet controller from
Realtek. The Dragon 8118 AS
is Realtek’s answer to Killer
NIC which so many gaming
motherboards come with. It
can be argued that Killer’s
software suite does more
harm than good so getting
a similar feature set from
Realtek is good since competi-
tion improves product quality
for the consumer. The Z170
Claymore does not come with
USB Type-C but instead has
two USB 3.1 Type A ports.

We’d like to believe two is
better than one, so we’re more
in favour of this design. Also,
most phones that have USB
Type-C have a Type-A con-
nector at the other end, so this
setup is more useful.

Mithun Mohandas

Vivo Vi Max

A well build smartphone with
average performance

O n first impressions,
the smartphone
feels well build. It
has a traditional
rectangular candy bar form
factor with curved edges and
isn’t a looker. You wont turn
and look twice at this
device if you saw it
on a table. Overall
the design of the
smartphone is
simple and sturdy.

The display is quite
reflective. While watching
videos, if there were scenes
in low-lit situations or in the
dark it was difficult to watch
on the display. On the other
hand, scenes in broad daylight
looked good and the viewing
angles were average. At a
particular angle the display
is great but change the angles
and you see a colour shift.

The resolution of the display
is low too considering the

Features 68

Performance 56

Design 54

Value 49

Specifications

Display: 5.5-inch 720P display:
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon
615 chipset Quad-core 1.4GHz &
quad-core 1.0GHz; RAM: 2GB RAM;
Storage: 16GB built-in expandable
via a MicroSD card up to 128GB;
Camera: 13MP rear and 5MP front;
Battery: 2720mAh

Contact

Vivo

Phone:1800-102-3388
Email: vcare@vivoglobal.com

1 2 22

O J1 * 0

■ • £j i

m *

U • i □

competition in the same price
bracket. The smartphone
runs on Android 5.0.2 with
the Funtouch OS 2.1 skinned
on it. The UI doesn’t house an
app drawer. Another inter-
esting feature of OS is that
there is the traditional drop
down notifications menu but
like iOS, swiping up from
the bottom of the display
reveals the brightness set-
tings, recently opened apps
other short cuts. Coming to
the performance, games ran
well on the smartphone and
the volume was loud from the
speaker. The camera is average
at best. Well-lit situation
produce good photos for social
media and low-lit situations
produce a lot of noise. In the
GeekBench battery test the
smartphone lasted for about
4.5 hours, which is average.

Sameer Mitha

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Dress up your OnHub Router

GoogLe has released several shells and also instructions
on how to make your own shells for its OnHub router.
#EmbraceTheRouter http://dgit.in/OnHubShells

One Ring to bring them all...

FBI has admitted that it uses sting rays and zero day
exploits for domestic 'surveillance' in the US of A.

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Bazaar

Feature 75

Design 61

Performance 73

Value 63

Specifications

Model: VMA40FH17XAH;
Display: 40-inches (101cm)
1920 x 1080; Connectivity:
4x HDMI, 2x USB, lx PVR,
lx AV in.lxYipperin.lx
Earphone in, lx RF in, lx IF
in, lx Smart card slot.

Contact

Videocond2h

Phone:+91124-3273091
Email: enquiry@vgmail.in
Website: www.
videoconworld.com

Videocon 40-inch DDB TV

Has a built-in set-top-box, one less remote to worry about!

T he Liquid Lumi-
nous Technology
claims to offer
more natural
colours, a system that
reproduces 95 percent of
what the eye can actually
see. It has non-traditional
tri-colored phosphorus
LED which increases the
colour reproduction range.

Visual quality is good,
nothing extraordinary, though. The Videocon
TV is equipped with Videocon Directly Digital
Broadcasting (DDB) technology, which translates to
a set top box built inside into the TV. You just need to
plug in the RF (antenna) and power cable, voila you
are ready to watch your favourite show.

Display brightness is also around 417.16 nits
against the claimed 450 nits. The display has a
built-in blue filter to reduce the strain on human

eye which actually works.
The audio is not so good
despite the built-in Seon
Sound speakers. If you
don’t want to miss out on
your favorite show, then
you can record it via Dig-
ital Video Recorder (DVR/
PVR) provided. Just plug
in a spare hard disk or
pen drive in the DVR port
and you’re good to go. But
recorded content is locked to the TV.

An undeniable positive of this set is just
one remote to control TV and built-in Videocon
D2H connection. So to access settings with other set
top boxes you have to use the hardware buttons. At
^4 Ok this is an average performing television, with
some interesting features. Other options to consider
are LG 32LF560T and VU LED43D6535.

Ashish Panigrahi

Lenovo Vibe Pi

In pursuit of long battery life

T he Lenovo Vibe PI, like the
Gionee Marathon M5, has a
big battery fitted into it, but
the phone doesn’t let it be its
defining characteristic, putting a little
more emphasis on other features, too.
So, while the Vibe PI can last you a full
day with its 5000 mAh battery, it’s
less than half of what the Marathon
M5 can do. The Geekbench 3 Battery
test yields about 12.5 hours, compared
to the 21.5 hours in the Marathon M5.
It’s still would suit most users.

Perhaps the biggest plus for the
Vibe PI is the fingerprint sensor on the
front - making the unlock process and
accessing the phone quite snappy. In
addition, it runs on the Snapdragon
615 SoC and can perform better than
the Marathon M5, but as well as the
Lenovo Vibe SI or OnePlus X.

The camera on the other hand, is
quite similar to the Marathon M5. The
Vibe PI can take good shots under
well lit conditions, but is weak under
low light. The Vibe PI and Marathon
M5 also look identical. The difference
is in camera placement and the fact

that the Vibe PI doesn’t have a
metallic frame around it. It
doesn’t take anything away
from the looks though, the
Vibe PI looks premium for
a sub 20k smartphones.

Overall, the Vibe PI is a
good phone at ^15,999. If you want the
absolute best in terms of battery life at
this price bracket, then the Marathon
M5 is the phone to go for, but you’ll
have to pay 2K more for it, which in
our mind is a justified markup.

Prasid Banerjee

Design 74

Features 75

Performance 67

Value 67

Specifications

Display: 5.5 inch 1080p
IPS; RAM: 2GB; Processor:
1.5 Ghz Snapdragon 615
octa-core; Storage:

32GB, expandable to
128GB; Battery: 5,000
mAh; Operating System:
Android 5.1 Lollipop

Contact

Phone:1800-3000-7678
Email: smartphones@
lenovo.com

Website: www.lenovo.com/
contact/in/en

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Bazaar

/7 ft *

v t S# /

Speakers for $1,990

Apple starts selling the Devialet Phantom speaker
exclusively in 14 top stores across the US. The top
model costs upto $2,390 http://dgit.in/lN05Qdo

Kanye in Oxford

Kanye West presented a guest lecture where he
touched on various topics including the working
of his inner mind. http://dgit.in/KanyeAtOxford

ZOTAC 240 GB
Premium Edition

Quite the first impression

Gionee
Marathon M 5

Going the extra mile

Z OTAC makes a foray
into the SSD busi-
ness with their
brand new
spanking Premium
Edition series.

Currently, available
in 120, 240 and 480
GB capacities, these SSDs
are powered by Phison’s
latest S10 controller which
we’ve briefly touched upon
in our review of the Kingston
HyperX Savage SSD. And
just like the Kingston HyperX
Savage, the ZOTAC 240 GB
Premium Edition also uses
Toshiba’s A19 MLC NAND,
except the ZOTAC SSD uses
eight NAND chips while the
Kingston SSD uses sixteen.
And the performance differ-
ence between the two is abso-
lutely minimal as well. To put
things into perspective, the
ZOTAC SSD was ahead of the
Kingston SSD by 0.06 points

Performance 85

Build 70

Value for Money 70

Specifications

ZTSSD-A5P-240G-PE; Form
factor: 2.5-inch; Cost/GB: '32;
Dimensions: 100 x 69.9 x 7 mm;
Controller: Phison PS3110-S10;
Toshiba A19 MLC Toggle NAND;
Warranty: 3 years

Contact

Aditya Infotech Ltd.

Phone:+120-4555666
Email: sales@adityagroup.com
Website: www.zotac.com

in our benchmarks - not really
a real-world differentiator, for
most tasks.

So where does it differ from
its twin from another mother?
For starters, the Savage is
well built with a thick metal
chassis while the ZOTAC
SSD’s body is a little thin but
made of aluminium as well.
The internal layout is quite
similar as well except for the
fact that one has twice the
number of NAND chips. Both
SSDs come with three year
warranties but the ZOTAC
SSD is a lot cheaper than the
Kingston HyperX Savage - a
crucial differentiator. For that
price, you get just the SSD and
a few screws so it’s not as if
there’s more value for money
given the fact that the King-
ston packaging comes with an
external case as well. However,
cost/GB is quite less.

Being so close to the stal-
wart Samsung 850 Pro, you
might be hard pressed to pick
the Samsung over the ZOTAC.
The performance difference is
minimal but the cost differ-
ence is the clincher in a price
conscious market like ours.
Definitely worth considering
for an SSD at sub-lOk.

Mithun Mohandas

T he 6020 mAh battery
on the Marathon M5
could have ended
up as just another
number, but the company
went the extra mile to ensure
it lasts long. It’s not that there
are no compromises
here, but the bat-
tery makes up
for them. If this
phone doesn’t
last you two days
on regular usage, then
you’re using your smartphone
too much. On the Geekbench
3 Battery Test, the phone runs
for over 21.5 hours, which is
more than any other phone
has been able to on our tests.

While the 720p AMOLED
display may not sound like
much, it is actually really nice.
The colours pop and even
though the screen is a tad over-
saturated, many would like

Design 80

Features 78

Performance 73

Value 64

Specifications

Display: 5.5 inch 720p AMOLED;
Processor: 1.3 GHz MediaTek quad-
core; RAM: 3GB; Storage: 32GB,
expandable to 64GB; Camera: 13MP
rear, 5MP front; Battery: 6020 mAh;
Operating System: Android 5.1
Lollipop

Contact

Phone: 18002081166

Email: http://gionee.co.in/write-to-us

Website: www.gionee.co.in

this display. Combined with
really good touch sensitivity
and feel. And despite the 5.5
inch size, the pixel density
doesn’t really get in the way.

The 1.3 GHz MediaTek
processor again a conscious
choice. Even though it is a
lower performing processor
than the market average, you
won’t mind it unless you’re
a gamer. High-end games do
show lags on the device, but on
regular usage, it’s just about
fine. This is another area where
the battery life makes up for
the phone’s shortcomings.

Lastly, the 13MP camera
on the back can take good
images as long as the lighting is
good enough. Low light shots
though are less than average.
Overall, if battery is your only
concern, then the Marathon M5
is the phone to go for.

Prasid Banerjee

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

e-stuff causes lung disease

A Havard study has found that tha e-cigarettes can
still scar the lungs and casue lung disease.

http://dgit.in/ecigarettesCancer

And in the darkness bind them!

The BBC and ITV have been embattled in a sparring
match which is pretty hilarious for neutrals Like us:

http://dgit.in/BBCroyalCharter

Bazaar

Performance 85

Build 75

Value for Money 56

Specifications

SHSS3B7A/240G; Form
factor: 2.5-inch; Cost/GB:
'40; Dimensions: 100 x
69.9x7 mm; Controller:
Phison PS3110-S10; Toshiba
A19MLC Toggle NAND;
Warranty: 3 years

Contact

Kingston Technology
Phone: 1860 233 4515,
Email: sales_india@
kingston.com,

Website: http://www.
kingston.com/

Kingston HyperX Savage SSD

Phison's a fighter

K ingston’s HyperX Savage SSD had us all
skeptical in the beginning. After all, the
last time we came across an SSD with
a Phison controller, i.e. the Phison
PS3109-S9, we were far from impressed.

So far, that it was outright painful to con-
tinue benchmarking that particular drive.

But Kingston’s HyperX Savage
was a completely different
experience and the controller
at its heart, the Phison PS3110-
SIO surely does deliver top
notch performance. Designed to
be the jack of all trades, the PS3110-
SIO is compatible with asynchronous,
synchronous and toggle NAND. In this
particular scenario, the new controller has been
paired with Toshiba’s A19 MLC NAND.

The Kingston HyperX Savage does feel really
premium with a hard board package, foam cushion
on the inside and accessories for all needs. They

ship a 3.5-inch adapter and an external case if you
wish to use the drive as an external. And you don’t
even need to go hunt for a screwdriver because
they’ve clubbed that as well. It’s the lazy
nerd’s care package. The SSD itself feels
quite durable with a thick and heavy
metal casing emblazoned with King-
ston’s branding. On the inside, the
PCB has 16 NAND packages
all, neatly packed with
plenty of spacing between
them.

From a performance perspective,
the Kingston HyperX Savage was surpris-
ingly good. Sequential read speeds were around
545 MB/s and write speeds were around 526 MB/s.
Even 4K read and write speeds were way above
average. It does prove to be a formidable opponent
to the flagships from other manufacturers like
Samsung and SanDisk.

Mithun Mohandas

Kingston Impact SODIMM RAM

A barebones essential

Y ou might be wondering, why on earth

did we start reviewing RAM? Well, with
the changing tides of the PC market,
Mini-PC sales have started increasing
and a lot of these Mini-PCs
happen to be barebones. So
you’ll want to know which
RAM to get for your next
Mini-PC purchase. Look
no further, here’s a
pretty decent candidate.

This particular model is
the Kingston HX318LS10IBK2/8 which
happens to be rated for 1866 MHz CLIO.

It also supports two other JEDEC profiles
- 1600 MHz CL9 and 1333 MHz CL8.

For the uninitiated, it seems that having a
greater Front Side Bus (FSB) frequency equals
greater performance.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the whole story. You
need to pay attention to the latency timings as

well, which in this case is indicated by the number
next to CLP

So is it really worth getting more MHz for
more money? It’s true till you hit the sweet spot,
which in the case of DDR3 memory happens to be
1600 MHz, after which you get diminishing
returns. However, this is the case
for the average user. If
your applications are
more focussed on memory
bandwidth then more
MHz is better. When we
ran PCMark on the kit at
1600 MHz and 1866 MHz, the
scores were only different by 2
points which is within the margin or error.
But when a memory only benchmark like
MaxxMem was run on the two kits, we noticed a
sizeable jump in scores which amounted to 10.17
per cent. So choose your DIMM wisely.

Mithun Mohandas

Performance 75

Build 70

Value for Money 70

Specifications

HX318LS10IBK2/8; Form
factor: SODIMM; JEDEC
Timings: DDR3-1866 CLIO,
DDR3-1600 CL9, DDR3-1333
CL8; Voltage: 1.35V; Height:
30mm; Heatspreader: None.

Contact

Kingston Technology
Phone: 1860 233 4515
Email: salesjndia@
kingston.com,

Website: http://www.
kingston.com/

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Street smart

AgentOOl

Are inexpensive GPUs sold in
the market worth your time and
money? The Agent speaketh!

Price watch

This month we take a Look at phones
under 25k and 2-in-l Laptops /
convertibles soLd in the market

Pick the perfect accessories
for your phone!

With so many options in the market, you’re spoilt for
choice when it comes to accessories for your phone

Abhishek Balaji

readersletters@digit.in

Cases and covers

Almost all phones and tablets need a case
or a cover. You wouldn’t want that shiny
new gadget of yours to get a scratch or a
dent would you? There are several options
available for cases. You can get one that is
purely functional or something that feeds
your passion. The market is full of options
and you are spoilt for choice.

Rugged cases

Almost all cases which offer durable and
heavy duty protection will compromise on
the look and feel of the phone. Your phone
will stop being that shiny block of metal
and will resemble a soapbox, and these
cases will add considerable heft to your
phone, which will be a deal breaker if you
bought a phone which is sleek and beau-
tiful. Some of them might also disregard
port openings, adding to your misery.

What you need to look for:

• Proper port openings

• Dust/ water protection

Rugged cases are built to Last

• Kickstand

• Built-in screenguard

Deal breakers:

• Too much heft/bulk

• Difficult to insert/remove

Thin Cases

If you are looking at just basic protection
for your phone’s back or glass, you can
buy one of the thin cases. These cases will
offer minimal protection from scratches
and bumps, but may not survive when
dropped or dunked in water. These are
standard cases and some phones even
come bundled with these cases. These
cases focus purely on functionality
more than anything else. Most of them
will retain the original shape and feel
of the phone. One important feature to
look for is a lip on the front of the phone.
This ensures that the screen doesn’t get
scratched when you place the device face
down on a table. For thin cases, with a
bit of personality, we recommend the
cases available from DailyObjects.

What to look for:

Lip on the front
Smudge, fingerprint resistance
Covered corners
Proper port/button cut-outs
Deal breakers:

Wacky prints on the case
Weak edges
Cheap plastic
Sharp Edges

Bumpers

Bumpers are polycarbonate, plastic or
metal bands which cover only the frame
of your phone. These are the best option
if you want the best of both worlds,
protection and minimalism. Bumpers
provide a small lip on the front of your

v ut

Thin cases provide minimum protection,
while retaining the form factor of the phone

phone, so, you can place the phone on
a table face down, without worrying
about the screen getting scratched. They
also provide protection to the corners
of the device which are the critical
areas should you ever drop your phone.
RhinoShield has some sweet bumpers
to offer, which protect your phone very
well. They are worth checking out.

What to look for:

• Rounded corners

• Lip on the front and back

• Scratchless insertion and removal

• Port covers

Bumpers provide protection to your device
where it matters, so it’LL save the phone
from accidental drops and bumps.

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Killer rigs

Building a rig? Don't know what
Cl C| components to include? Fret not, we'll
WW sort you out.

Recommended buys

This is Digit pick of the best products to
1 ft ft buy across several categories, updated

1UU every month. Feature

1 Phone Model

Life-Proof cases

Slim Cases

Brand-Model

Price

Link

Brand-Model

Price

Link

iPhone 6/6S Plus

Otterbox Defender

4000

http://dgit.in/OtteroxDef

Spigen Thin Fit Case

1000

http://dgit.in/Spigen6SP

iPhone 6/6S

Otterbox Defender

3070

http://dgit.in/lNT0uBY

Spigen Thin Fit Case

1000

http://dgit.in/Spigen6s

Huawei Nexus 6P

Poetic Revolution

1200

http://dgit.in/Poetic6P

Spigen Thin Fit Case

1000

http://dgit.in/Spigen6s

Samsung Galaxy
Note 5

Poetic Revolution

1700

http://dgit.in/PoeticN5

Nillkin Super Frosted Shield

320

http://dgit.in/NillkinN5

OnePlus Two

Spigen Ruggedd Armor

800

http://dgit.in/SpigenOPT

Nillkin Super Frosted Shield

340

http://dgit.in/NillkinOPT

Huawei Honor 7

Amzer Pudding Soft Gel
TPU Skin

480

http://dgit.in/AmzerH7

Nillkin Super Frosted Shield

400

http://dgit.in/NillkinH7

Moto X Style

Supcase Unicorn

1700

http://dgit.in/SupcaseMX

Nillkin Super Frosted Shield

480

http://dgit.in/NillkinMX

Premium Protective
Bumper Case

Deal breakers:

• Weak construction

• Smooth finish, weak grip

Phone skins

If you are one who likes to use your phone
without any cases, but want minimal
protection against scratches, you should
definitely try phone skins. Phone skins
are basically high quality stickers, which
wrap around your phone. You can
customize the print or choose one of the
various finishes to glorify your phone.

The most popular style among the skins
seems to be the carbon fibre finish, which
also provide some amount of grip when
using the phone. There are several com-
panies offering such services and some
even provide skins for tablets, laptops,
gaming consoles and power banks.

What to look for:

• Residue less removal

• Good grip

• Proper cutouts for sensors and ports

Deal breakers:

• Poor adhesion

• Too thick, which might prevent
the usage of cases and bumpers

Brands:

• dbrand, Skinnova, Slick-
wraps, Skins4Gadgets

Screenguards

Screenguards aren’t that important in
phones these days as they used to be
earlier. With the advent of Gorilla Glass
and DragonTail glass, phone screens are
becoming more and more resilient to shat-
tering and scratches. Tempered glass has
taken the market by storm, but it’s more

bark than bite. Owing to their thickness,
usually, 0.9mm, they add a significant
amount of glare to the screen. Protecting
the glass in your screen with glass might
not seem like the best idea, but the idea
behind tempered glass is that it shatters
first on impact while protecting your glass,
and these are expensive. Usually 2x-3x
times the cost of regular screenguards,
so are they worth it? Yes and No. Tem-
pered glass affects visibility under direct
sunlight. If your phone has an AMOLED
screen or a pressure sensitive screen, the
tempered glass will significantly affect how
you see the screen. If screen glare bothers
you a lot or you aren’t very clumsy, you
might as well skip the tempered glass.

Matte finish is good when you
want protection from smudges and
fingerprints on your screen, but sun-
light readability is close to null.

Tempered glass
What to look for:

• Anti-glare

• Residue-less removal

• Impact resistance

Deal breakers:

• Thickness

• Phones with curved, AMOLED,
pressure sensitive screens

Screenguards
What to look for:

• Clear, Glossy finish

• Wet application for curved
screens, dry for regular

• Impact resistance

Dealbreakers:

• Material too thin

• Covers proximity sensor

Portable chargers

Powerbanks are extremely important
when you have unreliable battery life and
a busy life. They are available in a wide
variety of sizes, right from ones that fit
in your wallet to those which can charge
your phone 10 times over. But, not all
portable chargers are created equal. There
are several brands which use recycled
batteries from phones and tablets in the
portable charges and these can not only
harm your device, but the charger will
also give out after a few uses. Branded
portable chargers are never cheap, but
they are guaranteed to last longer and will
hold power for a lot more charge cycles.

Be wary of the numerous non-brand
chargers available which sell for cheap.

What to look for:

• High capacity: 10000-21400mAh

• High Amperage. 2.1A/2.4A pref-
erable for faster charging

• Good build

• Multiple output ports

• Power indicator

• Type-C port

Deal breakers:

• Oversized

• Glossy finish, fingerprint/
smudge magnets

• Low power output

Interesting Find: Skin4Gadgets
customizable power banks

Skin4Gadgets has partnered with
Tukzer to offer the option of custom-
izing power banks. You can head
over to their website at skin4gadgets.
com and choose any custom skin and
the capacity of the power bank and

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

Feature

Adobe

Memes for Dummies

Adobe has released an app on the App
Store which Lets you make memes.

http://dgit.in/MemeDummy

Custom watch faces!

You can now create custom watch faces
for Android wear without any code!

http://dgit.in/lYq28MR

Brand

Model

Type

Application

Avg

Price (?)

Link

Evolutive Labs

Rhino Shield

Regular

Dry

$24.99

http://dgit.in/RhinoShld

GadgetShieldz

Regular

Wet

7999

http://dgit.in/gdtshld

Spigen

GLAS.tR

SLIM

Tempered

glass

Dry

999

http://dgit.in/SpigenSG

Nillkin

Anti

Explosion 9H

Tempered

glass

Dry

400

http://dgit.in/NillkinSG

Spigen

Crystal Clear

Regular

Dry

700

http://dgit.in/tekkitake

Skin4Gadgets will ship you a lOOOO
mAh or a 15000 mAh depending on
your choice. Priced at 2499 and 2999
respectively, these aren’t the most VFM
in the market right now, but if you want
a power bank that shows off your style,
these two are a good option for you.

Charging cables

We all need a spare charging cable,
whether it is at your office or your car or
just to keep one in every room in your
house. Although the OEM cables are the
best for your phone, 3rd party cable man-
ufacturers are quickly catching up. There
are several cables in the market; while
not all of them will damage your phone,
a few of them will charge your phone the
fastest. Standard cables charge at 0.5A
or 1A, but some support upto 2.4A. This
is useful for phone supporting faster
charging standards. If you however,
carry an iOS and a device which uses
MicroUSB/USB-C, you can get a dual
cable, which has both the connectors.

What to look for:

• Braided cables-Kevlar/Nylon

• Length of the cable

• Durability of the cable ends

• Thickness of the cable

• Amperage support

Deal breakers:

• Thin, flimsy construction

• Incorrect endings

• No MFI certification for
Apple device cables

• No 56K Ohm resistor for USB-C cables

Recommended Brands:

• Anker, Aukey, AmazonBasics, BoAt

Interesting Find: Flippy claims to be
the world’s first reversible micro USB
cable and it is quite late to its claim,.
Taking design cues from the USB-C
connectors, these cables can be inserted
into the ports in either direction, which
saves a few precious seconds every time
you insert the cable ends into a port.

The cable works with all the standard
micro USB devices and wall adapters, so
there is no need to for any modification
to use this cable. Fllippy also features
a tangle free flat design and supports a
charging current of upto 2.1A. It costs
^299 and comes in Snow White, Tangy
Orange, Aqua Blue and Midnight Black.
Link: http://dgit.in/DottFlippy

Camera accessories

Premium smartphones are increasingly
becoming well equipped with capable
cameras, which are edging out the point
and shoot market. So, why not add a few
lenses to make your phone shoot photos
and videos like a DSLR-wannabe. You
can take your pick from telephoto, macro,
wide, fisheye and even lenses which make
it look like a kaleidoscope. There are
several branded options available, which

provide the optimal performance, while
increasing the functionality manifold.
Heck, you can even get an add-on, which
will provide you front flash for selfies!

What to look for:

• Compatibility with existing
cases and covers

• Compatibility with multiple devices

• Image quality

• Clipping mechanism

Deal breakers:

• Chromatic and Spherical aberration

• High price

• Only-iPhone compatibility

Recommended Brands:

• Photojojo, Olloclip, Momentlens

Wall chargers

With almost all devices adopting a
standard charging mechanism, it is easy
to buy a few wall chargers which can be
used with multiple devices. The best deal
would be to invest in one with multiple
charging points so that you can plug
in all your devices at the same time!

What to look for:

• Multiple output ports

• Higher Amperage

• Charging indicator

• Desktop design

• Compatibility with Qualcomm
Quickcharge mechanisms
Intelligent power switching

Deal breakers:

• Low output amperage

• Regional power plug

• Improper output voltage

Recommended brands:

• Anker, Aukey, Belkin

OTG Flash Drives

USB OTG (On The Go) is found on nearly
every smartphone in the market today,
and is useful for those who have limited
built-in storage on their phones. OTG flash

OTG drives come with dual connectors

Brand

Model

Capacity

No. of

Output

ports

Price

(?)

Link

Anker

Powercore 20100

20100 mAh

5299

http://dgit.in/Anker20k

Huawei Honor

AP007

13000 mAh

1399

http://dgit.in/Honorl3k

Xiaomi

Mi pbl6000

16000 mAh

1399

http://dgit.in/XiaMil6k

Xiaomi

Mi pbl0400

10400 mAh

999

http://dgit.in/XiaMilOk

Hako

pb200

20000 mAh

1599

http://dgit.in/Hako20k

Lenovo

PA10400

10400 mAh

1199

http://dgit.in/LenovolOk

Digit I January 2016 I www.digit.in

New iOS beta out!

Apple released the iOS 9.2.1 Beta for Public Beta
testers just after the developers' beta version released

http://dgit.in/iOS921

Floating ornaments

Dyson engineers have managed to design
a Christmas tree with floating ornaments

http://dgit.in/HdcFZO

Feature

Brand

Model

Wired/

Wireless

Internet Archive Audio

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Full text of "Digit Vol 16 Issue 01 January 2016"

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